


Scattered Pieces

by LadyVader



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Rating: NC17, Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 10:39:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2689763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVader/pseuds/LadyVader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary/Info: This is the sequel I promised myself for my Inception AU ‘Pet’ which was so angsty writing-wise that I decided that once it was done I was going to wallow in the happy ever after – this be that. So, yeah this won’t make any sense storywise without reading ‘Pet’ first but frankly, I’m not planning on letting too much story sneak in between smexings ;) lol - I won’t be able to update often due to evol RL issues but I hope you guys will enjoy it as and when it goes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Sex, swearing, more sex, age difference & terrible, reprehensible sap.
> 
> Disclaimer: Arthur & Eames and everyone mentioned from the Inception film belong to Christopher Nolan (tho I like to think I let them have more fun than he does).
> 
> Dedication: For all the lovely people who enjoyed Pet, and my darling Beta Cheryl but most particularly for Gracerene who made my day with her sweetness and who deserves to have ALL THE NICE THINGS, all of them, for her overall fabulousness and I hope one of the things that she’d want and enjoy is this, so for you m’sweet :D I hope you likes it :) Happy Birthday and thank you again for your truly lovely love letter, you’re an absolute sweetheart xxx <3

SCATTERED PIECES:

_I’ll come to you in pieces [so you can make me whole]_

Prologue:

Arthur sank back into the pillows, turning his head to burrow close, searching for the elusive scent that said _Yes, Eames had once lain here_. He clenched his eyes tightly shut, his fist aching where he clutched his die ( _a joint gift for his 21st and their second anniversary: tickets to Vegas and a gleaming, clear, ruby, loaded die slipped under Arthur’s pillow as Eames smirked and feigned sleep beside him_ ) as though he could reabsorb that precious time via the skin of his palm, and wondered with hitching breaths how this bleak, empty nightmare had come to be his life.

Dom told him once (midway through one of their epic, midnight existential debates about the relevance of choice and longing in the fabric of reality) that the only truly dependable way to tell if you were dreaming was to try and remember how you came to be where you were, and so – 

- _It goes like this_ :

 **DAY ONE** :

Arthur woke abruptly, his eyes opening against his will and for a moment he could do nothing but blink against the light currently searing his retinas before slowly his other senses also began registering the details around him.

He was warm, too warm, and buried under what seemed to him to be a veritable mountain of bedding with... _oh_... a hot, heavy arm across his back.

Blinking until his eyes were finally fully focused, he bit his lip and _stared_ – incredulous and wildly hopeful all at once, as he tracked the solidly muscled and blackly decorated arm back up to the equally ink-splashed shoulder, its owner lying face down, mostly concealed by the plump cradle of the pillow beneath him.

Breathless, Arthur grinned and bit back an exultant roar of triumph, the prior nights happenings slamming back through his brain in waves.

Drunken late night confessions had never been _so good_.

Slowly, he slid his palm out from where he’d shoved it beneath his own pillow, extending it in tiny increments as though the smallest displacement of air about them might break the moment and then – holding his breath – he gently pressed down against the upward thrust of downy softness that cradled (and concealed) his bed-mate’s face.

Centimetre by centimetre the gradual compression of pillow beneath Arthur’s palm exposed first the curve of a lightly stubbled jaw, then a gently flushed cheek (ruddy with heat and deep sleep) before abruptly the downward brush of lashes and red, relaxed curve of parted lips had Arthur gaping, somehow _thrilled_ despite his certainty of who it was he had fallen asleep with.

_Eames._

He breathed the word, involuntary and heavy with reverent joy, before jerking in surprise as a blue eye blinked abruptly open.

Eames regarded him with a low-lidded, one eyed gaze for a moment before turning his head slowly against the close embrace of the pillow beneath his head until he could blearily blink both eyes at him, angling forward to brush his lips to where Arthur’s palm still trembled atop the pillowcase, resting alongside his face.

They looked at each other for a moment, silent but for the slow, sure breaths of sleep quickening into wakefulness, the crisp mid-morning light almost too sharp for their still half-lidded eyes as it over skimmed the skin above the covers, spotlighting the slow-building smiles twitching at the corners of their mouths. Arthur swiftly schooled his features into arch nonchalance as Eames abruptly affected a mock frown, his eyes twinkling as he leisurely levered himself up onto an elbow.

“What was I _thinking?_ ” He growled with a husky, sleep roughened voice that had Arthur half hard in seconds, his hips already itching to hitch upward as Eames moved slowly over him. “Taking an 18 year old lover? I’ll be dead of sleep deprivation before the month is out.”

Arthur cocked a brow and casually arched beneath him, enjoying Eames’ low hiss and appreciative stare as their bodies caught and dragged against each other.

“If it makes you feel any better,” he murmured breathlessly when Eames settled himself atop Arthur once more, his thigh already riding high at Eames’ waist from sheer muscle memory alone, “I’ll be 19 in three months.”

Eames made a soft, scoffing noise as he dragged his nose against the gentle rasp of Arthur’s own sparse stubble, turning his head to rumble directly into his ear, “Not really darling – that is, I’m sure I’ll be fine if I eat all my fruit and veg and be sure to take catnaps whenever possible et cetera,” he nipped at Arthur’s earlobe and Arthur whined low as his body fought him for both sleep and further contact with Eames, “but the thing is, I myself turn 26 in about a week, so – sadly - it really doesn’t really help at all.”

“Mmmm, 26.” Arthur repeated, unutterably thrilled by the random information, as Eames’ mouth hovered over his own, warm breath damp over his lips, “That’s _old_ – I mean, you should probably be ashamed of yourself or something.”

“Or something.” Eames muttered thickly and then their mouths were back together, already breathless with barely two hours respite, as though picking up from precisely the point where they had left off.

Eames ground downward as Arthur moaned and pushed up into his kiss.

“Pervert.” Arthur taunted, groaning deeply a moment later as Eames sucked fresh marks atop the slightly smarting skin that he’d already traced with both tongue and teeth only hours before, then shuddered as the arm that had been looped about Arthur’s waist dipped low to press a questing finger to his throbbing and still-slick hole.

“Fuck Yes.” Eames affirmed with a shiver when Arthur traced blunt fingernails across the wide spread of twisting ink along his torso and shoulders, shifting to press the already blistering heat of his iron-hard cock to Arthur’s.

“ _D-dirty old man._ ” Arthur hissed as Eames pressed his finger into where he had now _twice_ fucked Arthur, still deliciously sore in a way that had him shivering, sweat breaking out across his body as he mewled, embarrassingly loud beneath the wet, heavy press of Eames’ tongue. They rocked together, urgent despite the prior night’s events, unable to believe their dreams were made reality even with fresh blooming love-bites, swollen lips and quivering muscles to lay testament to their truth, instead falling – breathless - back to rut and writhe together.

“W-what – no comeback?” Arthur gasped as he circled his hips beneath the slow grind and swivel of Eames’ above him, groaning encouragingly as a second finger slid inside him, pistoning in and out, quickly biting Eames’ lip to punish him for his gravelly smug chuckle against his mouth as Arthur rode his fingers with a whine.

“Fuck now – banter later.” Eames ground out between increasingly rapid thrusts against the slick, stiff flesh of Arthur’s erection, each new grind and swivel seemingly earning a fresh, _desperate blurt_ of precome 'til they were fighting just to keep their slippery cocks in contact, skidding over bellies and hipbones and _writhingrockingruttingFUCKING_ into each other.

Arthur laughed suddenly, delirious with delight and disbelief and _came_ , his body shaking apart at the seams even as he struggled to stay twined and rocking against Eames, his mouth wet and open at his throat when he heard Eames mutter, “ _Fuck_ – oh FUCK Arthur...” and then come, thick, slippery and HOT across Arthur’s skin with a strangled cry.

They held in place for a beat, their breath rattling as seconds seemed too short to hold their hammering heartbeats, exhaustion crashing through them hot on the heels of their orgasms, both of them shaking when Eames’ elbow slid suddenly beneath his weight, Arthur whining softly when he was then forced to pull his fingers deftly free to better brace himself on both arms, their foreheads pressed sweat-slick and close as they panted into each others' mouths.

Arthur’s thigh muscles juddered once at Eames’ waist before protesting and falling feebly back to the bed with Eames following their example a moment later, groaning as he mashed his face against Arthur’s heaving chest.

“ _Fuuuuuck_...” He moaned tragically. “Arthur, darling I swear – I’ll _die_ if we keep this up. I can’t take it – I admit it readily – I’m _weak_ , alright? I require SLEEP, you bloody sex-beast you.”

Arthur snorted, amused even as his eyes slid shut and his limbs fell starfish-like against the sheets, boneless and wide-spread under Eames’ similar sprawl atop him.

“You started it,” he slurred and Eames grumbled slightly against his sternum.

“S’not true – was _you_.”

Arthur’s sigh took a lot more effort than it should have – easily as strenuous as his standard daily runs – so he contented himself with a lazily lifted eyebrow versus idly cuffing Eames about the head.

“Howsat?” he mumbled and Eames apparently found some as yet untapped well of energy deep within himself because he lifted up just enough to press an abruptly tender kiss to where Arthur’s heart still stuttered in his chest, pleasure-weak and sleepy all at once and Arthur cracked his eyes open just enough to look down to meet Eames’ drowsy blue.

“You were here,” he said softly and Arthur awoke just enough to drag a palm back from where it had rested limp against the bed, cupping Eames’ cheek and jaw for a moment before sliding his fingers into the perspiration damped strands at the nape of his neck.

“Nowhere I’d rather be,” he whispered and Eames smiled, dropping both his eyes and head so that his face was pressed tight to Arthur’s chest once more.

“Mm, s’good to know,” he muttered to Arthur’s nipple and Arthur smirked, letting his eyes fall shut.

Arthur felt as though he could simply sink into the mattress and disappear under the weight of his (admittedly blissful) lethargy and the warm, if crushing, weight of Eames spread over him, literally plummeting into a pleasant doze as his bones turned liquid and he heard nothing but the quiet hush of their breath in the quiet bedroom and-

“Ngh m’all _sticky_...” Eames lamented, apparently woeful and weary against his heart and Arthur’s body shook with silent laughter despite its overwhelming fatigue.

“Go to sleep Mr Eames,” he murmured drowsily and let himself begin to fall away once more.

“... _bloody sex beast_ ,” Eames muttered thickly even as his breaths fell deep and steady and Arthur was still smiling long after he tumbled after him into well-deserved sleep.

++

A clattering, buzzing noise awoke Arthur some hours later, the muted thrum of it somewhere up by his head annoying enough that he automatically sought to escape it, rolling further into the irresistibly warm body pressed all along his side, smiling as he pushed his nose against the salt sweat tang of hot skin and memories flashed, white hot and sharp against his brain.

 _Eames_.

“Mmph.” He groused, slurring the sound against Eames’ skin, dragging greedy fingers up one thick, hair roughened thigh, clenching against the warm muscle as he attempted to burrow beneath Eames’ weight, drawing his body over him like an especially sexy blanket.

Eames let out his own drowsy growl of disapproval, pressing a haphazard kiss into Arthur’s hair before heaving himself up and across Arthur’s still desperately huddling form, to disrupt the bothersome buzzing, snatching up the persistently vibrating phone from the night-stand with a grunt.

“Mm-lo?” he croaked, clearing his throat briefly as Arthur attempted to snuggle his way further beneath him.

“Hullo?” Eames said again, slightly clearer this time as his vocal chords and brain awoke enough to work in unison, it seemed, and Arthur smiled sleepily, looping his arms about Eames’ waist, already halfway back to dreamland when Eames stiffened, abruptly.

“I – um, yes. I he - He... he’s right here – I’ll just get him for you...”

A wide palm – somewhat more brutal than Arthur would have expected considering the prior kiss and cuddling – snared Arthur just above his elbow and hauled him mostly upright before releasing him to sag, squawking indignantly into the pillows.

He rolled over to glare, bleary and baleful to where Eames was now clearly _wide_ awake, one hand clenched over the mouthpiece of – _OH_...

Arthur’s phone.

“It’s Ariadne,” Eames hissed, conveying his deep horror and regret by way of wide eyes and dramatically raised eyebrows, blushing deeply as Arthur gaped and gulped in turn, taking in their naked sprawl against each other with new eyes as he considered his sweet, wonderful, _terrifying_ pseudo sister waiting on the other end of the line.

_I’m not here – I just stepped out – I joined the Foreign Legion – I DIED..._

Arthur sighed and felt the last of his sleepy bliss dissipate along with his cowardly desire to refuse the call, holding his hand out resignedly for the phone.

“Hey,” he said, hearing the husk of sleep on his voice and wincing as he met Eames’ eyes, both of them all too suddenly aware of the advanced hour of the day, smiling wryly as he heard Ari take a long, deep breath.

“Arthur,” she said with the same horribly calm tone she’d used right before opening her acceptance letters, “answer me _truthfully_ please – you are _in bed_ , yes?”

He took a short breath, bristling slightly with nervousness before smiling when Eames met his gaze sympathetically, plucking his free hand up to press a warm, comforting kiss to his knuckles. 

“I am still in bed, yes.”

“And this bed, you’re not alone in it - right?”

He clenched his jaw.

“Ari,” Arthur growled warningly, not at all soothed by Eames’ soft chuckle.

“ _AND_ ,” Ari continued, untroubled by Arthur’s tone as her own gained something like teeth in it, “the person currently IN said bed with you – this person, Arthur - are they _British_?”  
Arthur rolled his eyes and his head on his neck all at once.

“Ari, it’s _Eames_ , ok? You know its Eames, I _know_ you know its Eames, you _spoke_ to him so – yeah, ok, it’s Eames, Ari – IT’S EAMES.”

Silence fell at the other end of the phone and Eames snorted gently. “Oh, _very_ smooth darling.” Arthur sighed heavily.

“Listen, Ari-” he began, only to be cut off once more.

“Let me get this _straight_ , Arthur – you are currently in Eames’ bed, _with_ Eames at precisely quarter past one on a fine Sunday afternoon, presumably because you have _slept with him_?”

Arthur closed his eyes, a wash of cold dread coursing down his spine, heavy with the abrupt and awful notion that Ari might _disapprove_.

“Yes,” he said hesitantly and Eames frowned, shifting closer and nuzzling his hair as Arthur leaned into him.

“And this is – good? I mean, you’re ...happy?”

He shivered in relief, turning his face to smile against the curve of Eames’ jaw briefly, finally recognising her rigid tone for cautious concern and he ducked his head, blushing under Eames’ watchful gaze.

“ _Blissfully_ so,” he said thickly and promptly jerked backward, his arm held out in front of him as a high pitched, delighted shriek wailed immediately forth and Eames laughed, wholeheartedly and long. He collapsed into Arthur, helplessly shuddering against him as Arthur’s lips quirked in kind, torn between horror and adoration of his best friend and beautiful bed-mate in turn.

“ _OH MY GOD, TELL ME EVERYTHING!!_ ” Ari screamed audibly from the distant phone and Eames’ laughter diminished immediately as he scrambled backward off the bed, leaving Arthur bereft and outraged even as he laughed at both of them in turn.

“Ok, darling, that is most _definitely_ my cue to clear the area - I’ll leave you to your girl talk, shall I?” He sniggered, darting (gloriously naked) across the room and Arthur hurled a pillow after him, fighting to not smile too widely when Eames blew him a defiant kiss before ducking away into the bathroom.

“Well, I hope you’re happy,” Arthur mock-huffed into the phone, scarlet with embarrassment even as he smiled broadly, “Because of you, Eames has now retreated to the bathroom to laugh at me.”

“ _ARTHUR_!”

He sighed and shifted himself upward, trying to settle upright with the pillows mashed behind him, aware of a strange knot of speechlessness forming at the back of his throat.

He coughed, his mouth dry and heard her sudden hum of understanding.

“So,” she gently began for him, “I’m guessing you didn’t stay home after we dropped you off last night?”

“I, uhm,” he cleared his throat, “I never actually made it inside. I – I came straight here.”

“Oh _Arthur_!” Her familiar, admonishing tone helped Arthur regain a semblance of normalcy, and he grinned, wincing slightly as she continued, “In all that _rain_?”

He laughed self-deprecatingly, a blush suffusing his skin as he recalled the urgency that had spurred him through the late night streets regardless of anything that might have kept him from Eames.

“Yeah, I was pretty wet... and drunk... and _ridiculous_...” He shook his head with remembered horror, the sting of his embarrassment still heavy on his tongue despite the bliss that had followed. “I passed out practically three steps into the house – he had to put me to bed – I’m lucky he didn’t just dump me in a cab and forget I ever showed up.”

“You – you passed out and _then_ he took you to bed?” Ari’s voice was politely disbelieving but Arthur heard the undertone of VIOLENT DEATH and winced, glad at the current distance between Eames and Arthur’s would-be sister.

“ _NO_ , no – god no – I passed out, then he carried me up, put _me_ in the bed - his bed –and then _he_ took the couch... then, then when I woke up I was TOTALLY sober and... I, I came and found him, he woke up and, and we talked.”

“You _talked_?”

“We talked, yeah.”

He stifled a laugh, her silence as eloquent as the rant she was no doubt biting back, and then:

“Awesome – so, how big is his vocabulary then?”

Arthur laughed, unexpected and explosively – his sore muscles aching pleasantly as he rocked into his mirth. “ARI! My god – Jesus – we _talked_ , ok? We talked practically 'til dawn and –“

“ _AND_?” Ariadne’s voice reached heights that set Arthur cringing from the phone once more and he blushed further, suddenly unsure about his ability to share precisely what had happened the night before.

“And – and yeah, ok yeah – we, well I’m in his bed so you do the goddamn math, ok?”

Arthur sighed and placed the phone on the bedspread, rubbing his hands over his face wearily for the duration of her joyous shriek and pretended he wasn’t grinning into his palms.

“I’m not talking to you 'til you stop that,” he called down into the phone after a moment and laughed softly as he heard her muffling her further exclamations of triumphant glee.

“TELL. ME. EVERYTHING,” she yelled and he wrinkled his nose as he plucked his phone up once more.

“No, ok _NO_ – that’s weird, we used to be related kind of and just... _No_ , ok? I’m pretty sure there’s an over-share rule somewhere that clearly states you do not share explicit details with your best friend slash sister – it’s _gross_ or something.”

“WHAT? NO WAY!” she bellowed and Arthur hissed, the vague threats of a hangover lurking just behind his temples and he wished vaguely that he’d thought to call her earlier so he could randomly yell into _her_ no doubt throbbing head. “Arthur, there is NO FUCKING WAY you are not telling me _something_ goddammit! For _months_ I’ve watched you two circle round each other and then break and brood and make each other fucking miserable so I want details – not like PORNO level or anything, I still need to look you in the face and everything, eww – but you _are_ telling me SOMETHING damn it!”

“Alright, alright – Jesus Ari! I just- this is, I can’t just -” His face flamed and he broke off, choking a startled laugh of disbelief down as he realised he had literally no idea where to begin.

He paused, realising he was panting slightly into the receiver and Ari clucked, seemingly sympathetic and impatient all at once.

“Ok fine – Yes, No or Pass then? C’mon it’ll be like a fun yet perverted quiz show.”

Arthur snorted. “What - like ‘ _What is Losing My Virginity, Alex_ ’?” he quipped, only to jerk in horror as she shrieked once more.

“OH MY GOD, YOU REALLY DID? YOU HAD _ACTUAL SEX_?”

“Pass,” he croaked, mortified, and mentally thanked several deities that Eames had already left the room.

“No, no you can’t do that – I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry I went all nutso again, let’s start over: So Arthur, are you still a virgin?”

He sighed. “No.” he said quietly and couldn’t help but close his eyes and smile at the recollections, pinkening further at Ariadne’s quietly caught breath.

“So – uh, you ah-“

“Yes.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say!”

“Yes I do.”

“ _FINE_ ,” she huffed with amusement, “you _do_ – so... how was it?”

“That’s not a Yes or No question.”

She audibly ground her teeth, “Augh... FINE – Was it AMAZING, yes or no? Are you _walking funny_ , yes or no? Is he just as pretty _all over_ , yes or no? Did he ROCK YOUR WORLD Arthur, yes or no?”

At the precise moment Arthur parted his lips to respond, the bathroom door opened and Eames emerged – towel-clad, his skin flushed and dripping – to smile quizzically at Arthur, smirking as he saw the phone still clamped to his ear.

“And here I was waiting for you to come scrub my back,” he whispered mockingly, winking as he turned to start rummaging through what appeared to be an underwear drawer, and Arthur rose from the bed, mouth open – empty and unsatisfied – as he took in the beads of water rolling over Eames’ clean, wet skin.

“ _Arthur – Arthur are you still there?”_

Ari’s tinny, irritated tones from the phone shook his focus loose as he slowly crossed the room, gazing unabashedly at Eames’ barely clad form.

“Um, yeah – I’m still here... and yes. To everything you just said,” he muttered – distracted - and Ari all but howled in frustration.

“ARTHUR – you’re not even LISTENING to me, are you? I should....wait - _oh my god_ he came back didn’t he?” Her tone rocketed straight from sulky to salacious in seconds but Arthur was focused on how Eames had stilled, slowly turning his head 'til he could smirk softly over his shoulder at Arthur, his profile more blisteringly _GLORIOUS_ to Arthur than the sunrise they had witnessed, interlocked, that morning.

“I gotta go Ari,” he mumbled thickly and reached out a trembling, greedy hand to pull Eames toward him by the small towel ruched at his waist, yanking so that it loosened as he moved Eames round to face him, already lightheaded as their eyes met across the inches between them.

“ARTHUR WRIGHT, DON’T YOU DARE HANG UP ON ME!” Ari bellowed before Arthur could shift his thumb over to disconnect her, “You tell me... uhh, THREE ... three real things _right now_ or I will ask you again about of all of this but _IN FRONT OF YOUR MOTHER!”_

Eames raised his eyebrows at the admittedly powerful gambit and Arthur sighed, jerking the phone back up to his ear as he stepped close, biting Eames’ damp, freshly shaved jaw before jerking back, Eames’ towel in hand, breathing heavily as he looked his fill.

“Three things,” he grunted, panting, “right – one: he just came back from showering _alone_ thanks to this phone call, two: he is wet and _naked_ right now, Ari thank you _so_ fucking much for dragging this out and _three_ -” He let his eyes roam, his gaze as unquenchably needy as his hands across Eames’ skin, 'til they stilled and Arthur swallowed. His eyes lingered on the taut expanse of skin where droplets still ran downward to embrace gravity. 

“Three,” he whispered, swaying drunkenly, the space between them lessening 'til he could feel Eames’ breath mixing with his own. 

“ _Three_...” Arthur all but whimpered as the hushed mutter crossed his lips alone, his mind fighting valiantly (if unsuccessfully) to free him from the call even as his blood thickened in him to the point of incoherency. His tongue crept out to wet his parched, throbbing lips and his breath caught in his throat as he felt Eames’ thickening cock lift to brush against him, a sudden, swift hand easily appropriating the cell phone.

“Arthur has to go now, Ariadne,” he purred and Arthur practically convulsed at the predatory promise of Eames’ eyes on him. “He says _thank you_ for the somewhat alarming level of support but he’ll have to tell you a third thing some other time. Bye-bye now.” 

With that he held down the Power button until the phone began to cycle through the OFF function before casually dropping Arthur’s now fully silenced phone to clatter atop his chest of drawers.

“Lovely girl,” he growled as he hauled Arthur into his arms. “ _AWFUL_ sense of timing.”

Arthur would have agreed but for the whine that seemed to roll out directly past his lips as he mashed them to the wet, _lickable_ expanse of Eames’ throat. He gasped – open mouthed, wide and wanton – as Eames dug his fingers deeply into the firm flesh of his rear end, before using his grip to better roll their hips together.

Arthur ground himself into Eames, unable to help but sully the freshly washed skin with his own, his body still tacky with the well-earned sweat following a night (and morning) of passion. Their skin alternated between slick and sticky as he rubbed himself against the clean wall of damp flesh that was Eames’ body, Arthur’s arms upraised to cling tighter as he twisted his mouth to be kissed and they each fell back into the gasping urgency that had repeatedly plagued them through the early hours.

“Want – want it in my mouth,” he managed to gasp between Eames’ near violent thrusts, his erection rubbing sticky-slick smears across Arthur’s belly with every push and grunt. Arthur pressed his mouth tight and _pleading_ to Eames’ ear, _desperate_ , “Fuck my mouth – _please_ , come on Eames – want to _suck your cock_...”

Eames shoved him back, hands tight at Arthur’s biceps, his eyes bright and fierce as they flashed over Arthur’s face, cataloguing his almost embarrassing need. He leaned slowly back into Eames’ heat, lust-drunk and shaking as he revelled in the desire burning in the Englishman’s black-blown pupils.

“Let me,” he whispered where he dragged his mouth over and against Eames’ own considering, pursed lips. “Let me suck you – I want to _taste it_ when you come...”

Eames swallowed heavily and slammed their mouths together, brutal and brief before slurring, thickly compliant as he moved his clasp to Arthur’s hands, placing them against his hip and rigid, dripping cock. 

“As if I could ever deny you _anything_ , my darling...”

Arthur made an appallingly _desperate_ sound and jerked forward to lavish wet, grateful kisses across Eames’ breathlessly laughing face and down his jaw to his throat, before jerking them round – half dragging and half leading Eames across the room to spin him, pushing him down onto the bed.

“Oi, watch it!” Eames guffawed as he toppled over the low footboard, abruptly breaking free of their cocoon of almost impossible sudden intimacy, his easy grin drawing Arthur back to month's worth of laughter and quiet craving from the passenger’s seat. “In something of a rush are we, Arthur?”

Arthur cocked a brow as he elegantly took to his knees, sliding a warm palm up the thick muscle of Eames’ thighs, enjoying Eames’ sudden expression of enthused appreciation even as he had to choke down his abrupt desire to laugh hysterically at the literal incarnation of his dreams. He found himself besieged by equal parts disbelief and delight as Eames lay sprawled before him, propped up on his elbows as he panted and laughed into Arthur’s shuttered yet smug eyes.

He mock growled and shuffled forward between the warm, splayed thighs, dragging his fingers up, twisting through the short hairs 'til he could nudge just the blunt ends of his fingers into the crisp dark hair at the root of Eames’ proud, flushed cock, working his thumbs against the already tightening flesh of his lightly furred balls. 

The roof of his mouth felt tight, burning hotter than the rest of him (barring his weeping prick, possibly) and saliva flooded Arthur’s mouth as he simply allowed himself to look.

Eames’ body - previously just beginning to dry – now shone with the fresh gleam of sweat, aroused to the point of a deep flush mottling the skin of his chest, shading the inky scrawls and shapes from pale to pink. His breath caught and rumbled in his chest with every pant, his body loose and pliant but for his braced elbows, rosy rigid cock and the fixed, burning intensity of his eyes on Arthur.

Arthur wet his lips and swallowed back a low whine of need as the actuality of what he was about to do bled through past his overall appreciation of the man spread out, just waiting for his touch.

He was hard, so hard that it actively _hurt_ , but he couldn’t risk a quick squeeze, so sure was he that even the slightest touch would have him coming all across the floor. His breath burned in his chest, leaving him giddy and somehow distant, as though he was watching himself from afar and so, slowly, with great care to not whine or groan like a greedy child, he dipped his head to press a tender kiss to the petal-soft dome at the tip of Eames’ erection.

And then he _smiled_.

He couldn’t help himself, the fingers of one hand splaying across the plane of one firm thigh as his other moved to close about the base of Eames’ thickness. Then, with the hot, blunt press of Eames’ cockhead against his mouth, Arthur simply _had_ to smile – euphoric and close-lipped – just the damp drag of his curving lips over Eames’ skin already the realisation of so many yearnings that he _shivered_ with it. His eyes fell shut and he hummed with gentle bliss as careful fingers ghosted over his brow.

“You like that?” Eames breathed, wonderment making him sound as though he were miles away, his voice the merest whisper in the wind between them.

Arthur nodded slowly, his lips catching further – opening against the barely there pressure of the motion - and he didn’t even try to stifle his quiet moan of need as just the tip slid into his mouth.

He pursed his lips around the flare of the head, muttering, slurring his appreciative noises back into Eames’ flesh as his lips met and pushed gently against Eames’ foreskin, already mostly drawn back to reveal the slick, reddening shine of him. Arthur pressed his tongue against the shallow indent in the tip and _groaned_ , feverish and overwhelmed at the sudden blaze of flavour.

Still groaning, he pushed down further, entranced by the slow drag of thick, _hot_ hardness over his tongue, his lips clinging, quivering against the heat even as his tongue twitched and surged against the taste.

“ _Jesus FUCK_...” that was Eames again, a million miles away, it seemed, though the scorch of him beneath Arthur’s body held him close and steady, the sun to his tremulous satellite as he pulled up and sank back down, unable to keep the soft _needful_ noises from spilling past the occupied stretch of his lips.

He moved his hand then, moving upward tight and slow 'til he could press against his mouth, forcing his lips back against his teeth for the brief spark of reality the tiny pang evoked and Arthur pulled off, panting and keening quietly as he pressed his face into the juncture between Eames’ thigh and groin. He mouthed at the damp skin there, smoothing his tongue against the flat enamel of his own teeth and then the salty, hair-rough tang of Eames beneath his face, his hand still clutching loosely, twisting and stroking wetly at the head, his fingers trembling and stroking all at once.

“Hey – hey, c’mere you, Arthur – Arthur, come here darling.”

Eames sat upright, forcing Arthur from his near boneless slump against his thigh, a hand tight in his hair as he tilted Arthur’s face to his. He hauled him up and close to kiss him, deep and adoringly, even as he shushed him with feather light strokes and gentle squeezes, muttering softly into his mouth throughout.

“It’s too much – it’s ok – you don’t have to – want you so much no matter what – fucking love kissing you when you taste like me – it’s ok – let me take care of you now darling – it was just a bit too much...”

Arthur pulled back, his eyes wide, imploring, as he looked directly into Eames’ eyes in turn and leaned his weight heavily into him, slumping into the hand at his nape.

“It's _so_ much,” he whispered worshipfully, already pulling away. “It's _so much_...”

He had his mouth on him again almost before he’d finished speaking and Eames swore, groaning and surprised as Arthur sank down, trying to cram as much of Eames inside his mouth as he could take, slurping somewhat noisily as he swirled his tongue against the ridges and veins, moaning with abandon as Eames accidentally thrust in further.

“Jesus! _FUCK_... Ca-careful darling – steady...”

When Arthur was 13 there had been a video clip circulated between the male students, a three second mpeg that looped constantly unless stopped, of a red-lipped woman pulling slowly all the way back off of a thick, almost plastic-looking cock to gasp prettily as the subsequent ejaculation coated her mouth and face.

Arthur had beaten himself _raw_ to the thought of that clip – not because of the woman, naturally, but because he’d wanted to _be_ her so badly his mouth had actively watered at just the thought of it. His first sex toy had been the most realistic he could find and, until Eames, the hardest he’d ever come in his life had been the day it had slipped into his throat and he hadn’t choked.

He let his precome and saliva-slicked fingers beat up against his lips ruthlessly, battering them as he worked the base of Eames’ cock in time to sharp sucks against the fat, leaking dome atop his tongue and _groaned_ when Eames’ hand tightened yet further in his hair.

He dropped down then, flirting with his gag reflex as he let just the corona scrape the back of his tongue, his throat clenching reflexively, tears darting to his eyes as he rubbed the same spot over and over, letting his throat quiver and jerk minutely 'til he felt the need to slide back up, his mouth a tight, unrelenting seal about Eames’ twitching prick.

A thumb tip brushed just under the compacted curve of his lower lip, pressing it flush against his straining flesh before croaking gently, “Arthur – look at me.”

Arthur eased up and back, swallowing reflexively and gazed up at Eames through eyes framed by wet spikes, the lashes tear-damp as his throat protested its proposed usage.

He held Eames’ gaze and mouthed slowly, rapturously, at his cock, the head still resting just at the cushion of his lower lip. He suckled gently before pressing several sweet, sharp kisses to where clear pre-ejaculate pumped free with every heart-beat.

“ _Look_ at you...” Eames whispered and Arthur flushed, dizzy with want and the pounding pain of his own arousal, moving the hand that had been hotly clutching at Eames’ thigh and hipbone to firmly press on Eames’ sternum, holding his eyes as he acquiesced and allowed himself to be pushed back onto his elbows to watch. Their gazes locked as Arthur ran his tongue from root to tip and hummed, lapping at the length of it as he would an ice cream cone.

“You fucking _love_ it, don’t you?” Eames murmured huskily and Arthur nodded against his stiffened flesh, using the motion to drag his lips up and down once more – all but purring at the savage appreciation written dark in Eames’ eyes.

He held his eyes for as long as he could but already his mouth was watering, and resisting felt somehow like the burn from holding his breath too long and so, between one breath and the next, Arthur was slipping down once more. He sucked, swirling his tongue and emitting tiny hitched noises with each barely repressed thrust up of Eames’ hips, mewling as each movement pushed the Englishman’s cock deeper, pounding faster against his gag reflex 'til the tiny stabbing motions were nothing more than flutters at the top of his throat and all Arthur could think was _next time, next time, NEXT TIME..._

He wished briefly for the ability to speak _and_ suck at roughly the same time Eames started pulling Arthur’s head into his thrusts, just the tiniest jerks of his hand in Arthur’s hair, drawing him down into every hitch upward and Arthur would have momentarily traded his soul to crow _Yes, fuck my mouth, come on, I can take it._ He settled instead for moaning constantly, delightedly, and groaning desperately each time Eames yanked him up for air, ignoring his whine to keep going.

Arthur had forgone his jerking motions in favour of rubbing rhythmically at the thickening base of Eames’ dick, squeezing and pressing his thumb into the underside as Eames began a slightly circling motion that seemed to grind his cockhead further into the hot clutch of Arthur’s mouth with every push and Arthur was mentally chanting _now, NOW_ to try and make his throat accept the full girth and heat of Eames’ cock pounding into it, when abruptly Eames pulled too hard, stiffening as he attempted to pull Arthur back by his hair.

“Arthur – _Arthur_... darling, I’m- I’m going to come – _ARTHUR_ , I’m going to _come_...”

Arthur hesitated for the barest moment, torn between pushing for further depth and finally ( _FINALLY_ ) truly tasting Eames, and so he pulled back up, his fist _flying_ between the root and his lips now, cheeks aching with the force of hollowing so quickly, so powerfully against just the tip of Eames’ surging cock and, with a cry, Eames emptied himself over Arthur’s tongue.

Arthur almost sobbed with pleasure, the pulse of each jet of come over his palate somehow everything he’d wanted and nothing at all like he’d thought it would be. He swallowed quickly as it rapidly built up behind his lips, shivering at the flavour – so similar to his own and yet _infinitely better_ – as his hips jerked desperately against nothing. He moaned and smoothed a hand up, shaking and triumphant, to skate over Eames’ heaving flanks, riding the motion as the Englishman fully collapsed against the bed.

He continued suckling at the softening, slick flesh for a moment before a soft, pained noise from above him had him pulling off regretfully, nosing into the damp hair at the base to inhale – soap, sweat and semen – before turning to pant, exhilarated and mostly broken at Eames’ hip.

He was just considering whether or not he actually had the energy to beg when suddenly Eames surged upward, hands at Arthur’s shoulder and armpit as he hauled him up and off of his apparently tender knees and on top of Eames. Arthur splayed over him with a pained cry as his incredibly patient and throbbing cock nudged Eames’ taut belly and then Eames was forcing Arthur to his knees and elbows above him.

“ _FUCK_ , you’re so good...” he muttered as he yanked Arthur’s mouth down to his, his hand back and proprietary as it gripped tightly into the hair at Arthur’s nape, his other reaching down to – _aaah_....

Arthur whined in desperation, his arousal so far gone as to have become painful as Eames’ jerked quickly at him, their tongues clashing between their lips as they mouthed and bit at each other.

“Tell me – tell me you fucking loved it, tell me you love it that you fucking taste like my come now.” He snarled the words against Arthur’s sore, swelling lips and something like tears burned at the back of Arthur’s throat with the sour-salt tang of Eames across his tongue.

“I loved it, I _love it_...” he sobbed and kissed him, _burning_ as his chest heaved and stuttered under the weight of that sudden truth.

_I love it – I love you - I‘M IN LOVE WITH YOU..._

Arthur cried out, sharp and surprised against Eames’ mouth and came, painful and writhing as Eames relentlessly wrung every last drop of glass-sharp pleasure from him.

He sagged, collapsing atop Eames, aware of nothing but Eames’ mouth still tugging and pressing at his – gentle now, reverent – floating for awhile until the very real threat of sleep settled over him. He jerked slightly, lifting his head to fight it and blinking, met Eames’ eyes.

“Hello,” Eames murmured softly amused and Arthur flushed, wondering how long he’d had Eames pinned down, grimacing as he attempted to lift his weight from Eames only to find them steadfastly glued together with sweat and the entirety of Arthur’s ejaculation.

“Umm-Hey,” Arthur rasped and bit back a grin at the flare of interest in Eames’ eyes over his lightly ravaged voice box. “Didn’t you say something about washing your back in the shower?”

Eames smiled, slow and so stupidly radiant with satiation that it made something _hurt_ in Arthur’s chest, as he eased up to trace Arthur’s reddened lips with a somewhat trembling finger-tip.

“You have the _best_ ideas, darling,” he purred, and Arthur dipped down for a quick, smug kiss before allowing himself to be laughingly manhandled into the bathroom where it turned out that, as ideas went, it really was _excellent_.

End Day One.


	2. Week Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Literally Week Two of Arthur & Eames' relationship following 'Pet', containing smut, sap and angst in not entirely equal measure. Features pseudo power imbalance during a sexual fantasy style moment, it's in no way dub or noncon but if anyone feels it requires extra warnings etc please do let me know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I started this a million years ago and I'm sorry (for anyone even still reading it at this point, thank you so much and GAH SO SORRY all at once) but although it will apparently take me a looong time to complete, I won't stop with this one. I may not be able to go back for all my WIP's but this one will be completed even if it takes another million years. Since the last update I've changed the name from Scattered to Scattered Pieces because it was it's original title and for some reason I chopped it down and always regretted it. Also because I had feedback from readers who couldn't do the translate rollover on the french parts, anything in french now will be inside these { } exp. {Voulez vous coucher avec moi, darling?}
> 
> Huge thanks and glompings beyond measure to dysonrules for the beta job as always and for the buckets of support that go along with my obsession for this 'verse.

**WEEK TWO:**

"Oh... oh god - please..."  
  
Arthur licked his lips, parched from panting and pleading as he writhed from his position sprawled partway atop Eames. They lay, pressed chest to back with Arthur mindlessly pawing at Eames' arm where he gripped him in turn, holding Arthur's leg up and away with a hand behind his knee as he ground his cock in lazy, minute gyrations into the greedy, desperate clutch of Arthur's body.   
  
"Please what, darling? Hm?"  
  
"Please - please - let me come... let me come..."  
  
Arthur had woken - bleary and all too aware of his aching hard on - to the slick glide and pull of Eames' mouth over his flesh and he'd smiled, still sleepy and yet already breathless as he felt the blunt, gentle press of Eames' fingers at his hole.  
  
"Fuck yeah..." Arthur had slurred into his pillow and gladly awaited his coming orgasm.  
  
15 minutes later he was still waiting.  
  
Eames had nipped and dragged his gorgeous mouth across Arthur's eager body, squeezing and stroking 'til he had Arthur draped across him, Arthur's head tipped back against a strong, painted shoulder so they could tilt their lips together. Eames had tongue-fucked Arthur's mouth in tandem with the delicious, vicious stabs and shoves of his cock into him, harder and faster until Arthur was sobbing, grinding back and ready, so, so ready and just like that - Eames stopped.  
  
Arthur objected to begin with, but Eames had purred and lipped at his throat, barely hitching his hips against Arthur's and cooling them down far enough to move back from the brink, laughter huffing between them as they panted and trembled, the desperate urge simmering down into a delectable ache and slowly they began again.  
  
Arthur had braced himself against the arms framing him, his cock wet and untouched, bobbing before him as he'd pushed back and bucked into Eames' thrusts as he whined and rocked - almost there, almost there - and the bastard stopped again.  
  
"Oh no - no PLEASE..." He'd sobbed but Eames was unrelenting, smirking into Arthur's mouth as he begged and tried to force the harsh rhythm back into Eames' now leisurely slow screw into him.  
  
"Why?" Eames' hips gave a sudden stab as he tightly squeezed the base of Arthur's prick, drawing back to lightly grind just the thick, wet tip of his cock into the spasming ring of Arthur's hole. "Why should I let you come, Arthur? So you can go back to sleep then rise fresh and early enough to scamper off and leave me, hm? Because I have to say I think I'd by far rather just keep on fucking you and listening to you beg..."  
  
Arthur ground his hips back, trying to push further down onto Eames' dick as he growled, turning his head to nip at Eames' elusive, smirking lips.  
  
"This again? Eames - a day of packing was YOUR idea, you BASTARD... you fucking tease..."  
  
"No, no - I wanted us to pack together, you want to abandon me -"  
  
"What? Oh come on - we tried packing together and we managed to get like FOUR boxes done before someone thought it necessary to take a lunch, shower and blowjob break!"  
  
Eames part stroked Arthur's cock before he caught himself, flicking a blunt thumb nail along the ridge of his glans before squeezing once more, his other hand jerking Arthur's knee higher as he pushed back into him, agonisingly slow, and stilled once more as he pressed his lips tight to Arthur's ear.  
  
"Actually, darling, the blowjob break was definitely your doing - as was the ensuing snog session, not to mention the tiny four hour catnap..."  
  
"...that was YOUR fault - I was exhausted! You fucked me in the shower and on the floor of the study - face it Eames, the only thing that's getting done if we work together is me!"  
  
Arthur found himself ruthlessly twisted downward 'til his back rested against the sheets, his hips still interlocked with Eames' as the Englishman levered himself up on one palm to loom over Arthur, teasingly rotating his hardness within him once more.  
  
"You're not complaining are you, Arthur, my darling?" He leaned down to press their foreheads together, swallowing Arthur's cry as he jerked free, lifting Arthur's leg as he dipped between his thighs to nudge slickly back inside him, sliding home on an ecstatic gasp from both and Arthur clung to him, moaning as he stared up into Eames' dark gaze.  
  
"I just want to come with you inside me," Arthur murmured, "is that so much to ask?"  
  
Eames huffed softly before pressing their lips together in an almost unbearably romantic kiss that was completely at odds with the sudden snap and drive of his hips.  
  
"I cannot tell you how ridiculously unfair it is that I'm the one being abandoned and yet somehow I feel compelled to give you every bloody thing you've ever wanted when you look at me like that."  
  
Arthur grunted, rolling his pelvis up against the irresistible force of Eames powering into him.  
  
"M'not abandoning you - you needy, goddamn drama queen..."   
  
"Course I'm bloody needy you great unfeeling git! I've got used to having that mouth on tap - how am I meant to get by with you gone for an entire day?"  
  
A delighted gurgle of laughter burst past Arthur's lips and he couldn't help but pull Eames down to press his lips to the only somewhat teasing pout, chuckling richly into Eames' mock-mournful sigh before moaning as the steady burn and spark of pleasure distracted them both.  
  
Eames dropped his forehead to press, warm and sweat-damp to Arthur's, panting as they lipped and nipped at one another. "Stay," he grunted, breathless. "Miss you too bloody much."  
  
Arthur's thighs strained and trembled as he tried to hitch himself higher and drag Eames closer all at once. "Can't-" he gasped. "-N-need to pack - takes forever otherwise - be back for your birthday - m-make it up to you then..."  
  
Eames buried his face in Arthur's throat, his thrusts increasing - erratic now as he hammered into Arthur, one large, blunt-fingered hand shifting from his hip to curl, rough and insistent, about the base of Arthur's now copiously weeping prick. "No deal. Come back when you're done... sleep over... and then I can unwrap you in the morning..."  
  
Arthur's breath hitched as Eames gently squeezed the moist, engorged tip of his cock and he bucked up faster, desperate now. "C-can't. I promised Mrs... Moore dinner - not been since... since night of - fuck, ah god FUCK Eames... I can't - I, I - you, you should come to mine, s-sleep in my bed... god, god FUCK ME, FUCK ME..."  
  
Eames groaned, low and frantic, his body slapping against Arthur's almost savagely as he pounded into him harder and faster and Arthur writhed as the now familiar (yet still so necessary) coil of sluggish ecstasy began to burn insistently in his belly and he bucked and thrust into the tight clench of Eames' fist.   
  
He heard himself, sobbing frenziedly with every stab of Eames' cock up inside him, taking not quite a moment to marvel at his own neediness and then he was shuddering, crying out and coming in thick, slick ropes between them.  
  
Arthur lay, stupefied and boneless beneath the delicious weight of Eames, just managing to shove his hips back up into Eames' last few juddering thrusts before humming with smug delight as Eames stiffened and spilled into him and so, triumphant, Arthur allowed himself to simply soar for a few brilliant minutes.  
  
"Y'know," Eames murmured after a few, gloriously sated moments had passed, "you could have just said you wanted me to come over."  
  
Arthur smiled sleepily before a soft sound of discontent and a disappointed moue accompanied Eames' careful withdrawal from his body.  
  
"Hmph, last time I tried that you turned me down flat, remember?"  
  
Eames dipped down, having ditched his condom and retrieved their now well stocked supply of wet wipes with which to wipe them clean, before kissing him with a long, satisfied sigh.  
  
"If I'd said yes then, darling - aside from being fired - I'd have died from forcibly restraining myself. Now I'm free to snuggle you in your own bed, cosy up to you on your own couch and ideally fuck you over every horizontal surface available."  
  
Arthur curled into Eames' embrace as he lay back down beside him, pulling the comforter over their sweat-damped bodies and nuzzled into the much-loved column of his throat.  
  
"Sounds like a plan to me." He sighed blissfully and smiled as he felt Eames carding fingers through his hair, soft lips pressed to his hyper-sensitive skin in a shaky, tender kiss.  
  
"Mm, doesn't it?" he murmured and Arthur hummed in drowsy affirmation before sliding toward oblivion - secure, sated and not quite two hours from the unwelcome blare of the alarm.  
  
_Worth it_ , he thought smugly and fell directly into a deep and well deserved sleep.  
  
  
++  
  
  
Arthur pushed open the door to the coffee house already smiling, having been able to see Ari's straining neck and upright spine from outside as she peered impatiently at everyone who crossed the threshold before him.  
  
The warm amber light of early evening bounced off her broad, beaming smile and Arthur felt the quick sting of guilt at having not seen her since Graduation, their frequent texts having been enough to keep her off his back for the most part, but she'd threatened him (or worse Eames) with bodily harm had he not agreed to meet up with her today.  
  
He paused at the counter, glancing over to Ari before ordering a fresh Grande peppermint mocha with added whipped cream for her and an iced Grande mocha. She didn't always select such a fancy drink by any means but it generally bought him a little leeway to be somewhat frivolous with his own choice.  
  
He could feel himself blushing as he paid the barista; his head ducked as he carried their drinks over to where Ari sat with her elbows on the table, her cupped hands supporting her smirking face as she cocked a brow at him. He sat, somewhat warily, across from her.  
  
"Hey," he managed, a smile trembling threateningly at the edges of his lips and dimples.  
  
"Hey yourself," she chirped back, merry mockery evident in the speculative gleam in her eyes and the fact that it seemed only the table between them was keeping her from launching herself directly at him to likely pinch his cheeks, ruffle his hair, or worse. "So?"  
  
Arthur made what felt to him to be a Herculean effort to stay cool and collected, his brow quirking even as his shoulders shook slightly and - upon risking a quick glance into her eyes - he couldn't help but smile, laughing low and helplessly as he curved his hands around his cup.  
  
"I - I have no idea what to say." He choked, attempting to quash the startling new breadth of the smile threatening to overtake his face, rocking a little, awkward, as he lifted chilled palms to rub over his gradually heating cheeks.  
  
"Everything," Ari beamed, obliterating her whipped cream with a few vicious stirs as she fixed him with a beady stare, "say EVERYTHING, Arthur - I'll tell you when to stop."  
  
He laughed, pausing to take a calming swallow of his coffee, "Umm... ok, I - I'm not sure where to start, though... I pretty much told you most of it."  
  
She snorted inelegantly. "Oh please. All I've had from you is that you're together, he's going to Paris with you and apparently if he walks out naked from the shower you turn into an ungrateful shit who's suddenly too good to let his best friend listen in on his sexploits with a man we've all been secretly fantasising about for a year."  
  
Arthur spluttered, caught between mirth and horror, struggling to not snort his mocha out through his nose. "Wait - ok: firstly HE hung up on you not me - though I obviously would have - and secondly, you've been secretly fantasising about him??"  
  
"Well duh, Arthur - he's gorgeous, so y'know, quelle surprise... but that's beside the point - I know almost nothing so SPILL."  
  
Arthur sighed long-sufferingly.  
  
"Alright - alright fine. So, obviously I went over there - drunk - passed out, woke up in his bed, found him downstairs sleeping on the couch and then we talked about everything that's happened - how we felt - and then, well, y'know... all was well so... we went upstairs together."  
  
He shrugged loosely, blushing.  
  
Ariadne folded her arms and sat back. "Wo-ow," she drawled, mockingly. "You make it sound so filthy, how could you bear to say that aloud here in public?"  
  
"Oh, for - alright, fine - why don't YOU just tell me what you want to know, but that's what happened!" He crossed his own arms over his chest and regarded her balefully, regretting his words as a hungry gleam lit her eyes.  
  
"How is he? I mean, amazing, otherwise you wouldn't be smiling like you were before but, tell me something - ANYTHING - something I can't just see for myself in gay porn movies."  
  
Arthur's eyebrows made for his hairline. "You... watch gay porn now?"  
  
Her answering grin was positively salacious. "Rob linked me some - now I'm addicted."  
  
He nodded sagely. "Been there." He smirked before he could stop himself and then the irrepressible smile was back, his cheeks aching from the force of it and so he took another deep, cooling swallow of his drink, blushing as Ari laughed with delight.  
  
"So - come on then, porn king, tell me something true."  
  
"True? Ok, you're a pain in the ass." That earned him a proffered middle digit and a narrow-eyed stare. He sighed. "Alright, alright - something true..."  
  
He ran through a rush of images in his mind, a blur of their bodies pressed tight and heaving, whispered endearments and muttered filth setting him blushing even as he shook his head, trying to move past the more outrageously intimate memories for something he didn't mind repeating in public.  
  
In his pocket, his phone buzzed insistently and, on autopilot, he drew it out to read the incoming message, smiling instantaneously - unconsciously - as he noted the sender.  
  
**Alright, it seems I'm officially pathetic - I haven't seen you in nine hours and I HATE IT. What time shall I be at yours, darling? I warn you - If I have to go too much over 12 hours without touching you I'm not sure it's fair to hold me responsible for my actions. E.**  
  
Arthur bit his lip, his stomach fizzing pleasantly as he squirmed in his seat.  
  
**I should be home about ten, will call you when I leave Mrs. Moore's house. I got most of my sorting & packing done so you can quit being such a sap, ok?!**  
  
He sent the reply with a few rapid-fire thumb strokes, before pausing to fire off an addendum on a blush.  **I miss you, too.**  
  
"I, uh - I take it that was the man himself?" Ari asked archly (though Arthur could see her bite back her own smile) her eyebrows raised as she watched him place the phone on the table top, idly stroking it with one finger as though Eames would somehow feel it.  
  
"Yeah, that was Eames... I left just after eight this morning, just had some things I needed to get done - packing and storing stuff, y'know? Anyway, he's pouting because he hasn't seen me all day."  
  
Ari grinned. "That's - that's sort of adorable."  
  
Arthur lifted his gaze back up from the now darkened screen atop the table, smiling - slow and self-satisfied - almost purring as his brain rolled back through his past few weeks of bliss, fixating on Eames and his eccentric, brilliant, adorable and somehow devastating ways.  
  
"He... he won't let me sleep," he said and felt a tremor pass through him at the abrupt thrill of sharing  _his_  Eames. "He wakes me up several times a night, not because of - well, ok not only because of...  _that_  - but because he can't go without kissing me. He'll wake me up and sometimes we'll just... make out for like ten minutes and then just fall back to sleep all wrapped round each other."  
  
"And sometimes you don't fall straight back to sleep?" She batted her eyelashes at him and propped her chin in her palms once more, eyes gleaming.  
  
He rolled his eyes and threw her a bone. "Well, why did you think I wanted to meet for coffee - he woke me up three times last night! We didn't even go to bed 'til midnight!"  
  
Ariadne's delighted gurgle of laughter had him fighting his own back as he took a deep, quelling swallow of his drink, before he continued on, getting giddier with every remembered moment.  
  
"And on our first day together, after you rang - thanks for that, by the way - I was most of the way asleep and he snuck out of bed and, when he didn't come back, I got up and followed him downstairs where he was all but spitting teeth trying to cook me breakfast - at nearly 5pm by then - and he'd burnt the coffee and the eggs were like rubber. It was awful. I loved it. He was mortified, of course, but it was so..."  
  
"Adorable?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
His phone buzzed against the Formica and Arthur made a valiant effort to not snatch it up immediately... failing miserably when Ariadne quirked an eyebrow at the sluggishly dancing cell.  
  
**TEN? Bloody hell darling - what sort of crazed party animal old lady is she? My Nan's in bed by SUNSET. Don't party too hearty with the pensioner, ok? I'm counting the bloody minutes here... I miss your face. E.**  
  
"We ended up ordering in Chinese food." Arthur swallowed, his thumb trembling against the touchpad as his blood sang and surged at the thought of Eames prowling his house, watching the clock and wanting him, "And making out on his sofa like we were expecting his parents home at any minute. It was…"  
  
_Eames' weight pressed him down into the worn leather as they each bucked and writhed against each other, the tang of sweet and sour sauce flavouring their kisses and Eames whispering every dirty thought that crossed his mind into Arthur's gasping lips and..._  
  
"-surprisingly cute. Like a bad first date from a movie."  
  
Ariadne snorted, caught between her amusement and apparent disbelief as her gaze held steady on Arthur's flushed cheeks.  
  
"Mm-hmm." She teased him and he reiterated his earlier offer of his middle finger with one hand, pressing Send with the other.  
  
**It's probably more like 9 - 9:30 alright? I was rounding up in case of hardcore canasta gossip. Don't worry (you'll get wrinkles & then we're through) I'll call you the SECOND I'm done there. ...Just my face??**  
  
"I take it he's being just as surprisingly cute via text? If not, then that goofy grin on your face is totally uncalled for."  
  
"Sorry." Arthur grinned, utterly unrepentant. "He says he misses my face."  
  
Ari took a long sip of her drink, cocking her head inquisitively. "Just your face?"  
  
He smirked. "That's what I said."  
  
She laughed, rolling her eyes at his decidedly smug expression. "Ok, alright - it's official, you're nauseatingly cute together. Now tell me something dirty." She waggled her eyebrows meaningfully and bit her lip, mischief lighting her face, and Arthur was stunned for a beat by the rush of affection that pulsed through him.  
  
"Fine," he said, surprising them both, popping his phone back down and taking a large, gulp of coffee before leaning forward, his voice lowered conspiratorially. "The other day I was fixing us some lunch and he had his iPod docked in the kitchen, playing in the background and then that old song 'Crazy for You' comes on - you know, vintage Madonna, headscarf, fingerless gloves et cetera - well, as per our usual routine I went into my standard spiel about how he has the musical tastes of a pre-menopausal woman-" He broke off to match his brief snigger to Ari's before continuing.  
  
"-but then, instead of lobbing mushrooms at my head like he had for a few songs prior to that one, or even just sniping back at me about my dependence on the top 40, he walks over to the docking station, sets the damn thing to repeat and just stands there looking at me."  
  
_'What? That's it - you're going to punish me for my cheek by over-exposure to bad 80's pop ballads? Consider me quaking in my boots.'  
'Darling? Run.'  
'Run?'  
'Mm-hm. You see, I've always been a huge fan of the research process of behavioural conditioning - that is to say, I'm going to leave this song on repeat and, in just a moment, if you haven't already fled for your life, I'm going to pin you down and make you come so hard that in the future just the very IDEA of this song is going to get you hard. So, I'm giving you a chance to try to save your lofty ideals darling... RUN.'_  
  
"He just looked at you? THAT's your dirty story?"  
  
Arthur wet his lips, pushing his chair back from the table with a hurriedly blasé expression and leaning over the table as he stood to murmur.  
  
"No, the dirty bit's when he chased me all over the house 'til he caught me, threw me down and dry-fucked me into the floor. Completely ruined both our jeans but he figures it's worth it because now I get stupidly turned on whenever he plays the damn song."  
  
Arthur blushed so hard that his head swam and so he straightened up with a self-conscious grin at her dropped jaw and excused himself to the men's room before he could give in and start giggling like a loon. He lingered there a moment longer than necessary, splashing his face with cold water and admonishing himself for getting carried away before exiting the bathroom, crossing the room hesitantly as he took in her glazed expression and profoundly red cheeks.  
  
"Too much?" he asked, grimacing, his stomach tightening with remorse as he slid back into his seat.  
  
"Um, kind of," Ariadne squeaked, her voice oddly high and pinched as she kept her gaze averted. "I - uh - I... you got a message. From Eames - I was curious - I read it - I'm sorry."   
  
She slid Arthur's phone toward him across the table top, finally meeting his eyes as she looked up, blushing as she grinned and the knots uncoiled deep in Arthur's belly.  
  
He looked again at Ari's pink cheeks and glittering gaze, picking up his phone with a rapidly increasing heartbeat, fighting back a smile as he read the text.   
  
**Well, since you requested specificity, Arthur, here's just a few of the things I miss most without you here: FOOD (my god, how have I survived my own cooking for so long??), your hatred of almost ALL of my music (despite the fact that you generally know ALL the words!!!), the frowny face you give me when I don't pack my possessions by category, that hot, triumphant, SMUG little noise you make when I come in you, YOU (see; Being With, Talking with, Kissing, Holding, Touching, Tasting, Sucking, Fucking etc.), and last but not least YOUR FACE. Clear enough for you yet, darling? E.**  
  
Arthur read the message through a few times, taking slow, deep breaths through his nose whilst he concentrated on not smiling wide enough to split his face before lifting his gaze back to Ari's.  
  
"Got a little more information than you were expecting?" he quipped with a quirked brow, his smirk spreading into a wide smile as she blushed, grimaced, and fanned herself all at once.  
  
"Little bit, yeah." She grinned, unabashed. "But, y'know... it's kind of hot too."  
  
They smiled at each other, flushed and giggly, and Arthur flashed back to all the times her doe eyes had filled with tears for his pain during the past year and so he reached out to squeeze her hand.  
  
"You want to hang out for a bit? I've got some time before I need to head over to Mrs. Moore's, and besides, it's my turn to drill YOU about Yusuf!"  
  
She smiled brilliantly and launched into a story about dragging poor Yusuf to the yearly Rittner family reunion, and Arthur sat back with a smile to let her joy wash over him and intermingle with his own, only allowing his thumb to briefly fly over his phone when she excused herself to the bathroom.  
  
**Ari read your last, will tell you more later. See you tonight.**  
  
He sat back in the booth, sighing contentedly and smiled out at the leisurely sinking sun before letting his thumb flicker over the phone once more.  
  
**Can't wait to see you. Miss your face et al as well.**  
  
He smirked to himself before laughing, his stomach flipping with impatient delight as a reply pinged almost immediately into his inbox.  
  
**NOW who's the bloody sap, hmmm?? Can't wait either - see you tonight. E**  
  
"Everything ok?" Ari grinned as she slid back onto her seat across from him and Arthur made no effort to hold back the full force of his smile.  
  
"Yeah," he said, "It's brilliant."  
  
  
++  
  
  
Arthur pressed a kiss to Mrs. Moore's weathered cheek and smiled as he stepped out her front door, promising to bring his “young man” over for an official introduction just as soon as he could. In truth his insides seemed to writhe with guilt for having spoken to her and Ariadne both about Eames before he'd had the chance - or the nerve - to tell his mother.   
  
It wasn't that he didn't want to tell her, but there had only been two days between Graduation and their trip down for Rick's parents' anniversary and - instead of casually confiding to his mother that he was seeing someone and that he would love to introduce them once they returned this coming weekend - he had instead remained silent on the subject. He'd blushed all the way through the one meal they had shared, somehow certain that his mother would know that only an hour before, he had been straddling Eames' torso, his hands clenched in the Englishman's hair as he'd hesitantly (yet delightedly) fucked Eames' lush, beautiful mouth.  
  
He was still smiling at the memory as he stepped out onto the street, waving back at Mrs. Moore as she trotted back inside and closed the door. He turned back, to walk towards his house, and paused, his breath huffing out of him on a soft, elated laugh.  
  
Eames was sitting on the curb outside his house.  
  
Arthur grinned devilishly and ducked close to a nearby streetlight, quickly pulling his phone free of his pocket and dialling a now cherished new number, watching as - down the road - Eames frantically dug for his own cell in his jeans pocket. His face lit up as he glanced at the screen before answering, his smile blinding even from a distance.  
  
"The Eames Foundation for the Woefully Un-Kissed - how may I direct your call?"  
  
Arthur rolled his eyes. "Uh - hi, may I speak to the founder, please?"  
  
He watched as Eames rose from the curb, the normalcy of his outfit of worn jeans and t-shirt still a delicious punch to the gut after so many months of his admittedly gorgeous but decidedly more formal (if occasionally bizarre or torturous) teacher attire.  
  
"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry, young sir, I'm afraid he's stepped out for a moment to go stalking hot young men - would you care to leave a message for him at all?"  
  
Arthur attempted to school his features into something less like lovesick adulation as he resumed his slow walk down the street. "Yeah, tell him to turn around."  
  
He disconnected the call and slid his phone back into his pocket, his chest tightening as his breath caught and held at the exact point Eames looked around and saw him.  
  
It took barely the span of a minute to close the gap between them, even walking as nonchalantly as he could, smirking as Eames' eyes raked him greedily from head to foot, Arthur's own gaze riveted upon the low-lidded stare as it tracked his every move until he slowed and then came to a halt a few feet from the curb.  
  
Eames' beautiful, expressive lips twitched minutely before the building smile was tamped down to match Arthur's own hopefully impassive expression, gazing at one another for a beat, his cheeks aching as he fought off the urge to beam sappily at him.  
  
Eames moved the barest beat before Arthur surged forward, a helpless, needy noise spilling from his lips a fraction of a second before Eames' mouth slanted over his, matching, moaned sounds of affirmation bursting from them both. Eames' fingers thrust into Arthur's hair to hold him steady and Arthur's arms wound tight about his shoulders as they swayed in place, murmuring into the kiss and sighing as each of their days improved exponentially.   
  
Gradually, over slow, honey-thick breaths and light-headed tilts into each other, they moved apart and Eames butted his nose gently into the side of Arthur's, grinning wryly as he unabashedly nuzzled him, much to Arthur's quiet delight.  
  
"So. Hi."  
  
Arthur snorted and pulled back to look into Eames' amused face.  
  
"Hi," he echoed, grinning as he lifted a hand from where it had still been clenched in Eames' T-shirt to run the pad of his thumb over a smudge of dirt at Eames' jaw. "You're filthy. I take it the packing went well?"  
  
Eames pulled a face, stepping back and shuffling in place, his face colouring as he glanced down. "I might have gone a tad mental on the packing, yes. But my theory is..."  
  
Arthur cocked a brow, smiling as Eames' gaze turned frank where it had briefly rested at evasive and Eames sighed, laughing slightly before moving forward once more, wrapping Arthur in his arms and speaking directly into the warm skin of his throat.  
  
"...my theory is that I bloody hated today - 13 hours apart and apparently I turn into a pile of sappy, sighing mush, alright? So no more of that. I hath spoken and all that bollocks, so. Yes. I veto your separate packing plan, alright?"  
  
Arthur smiled, slowly to keep from laughing. "Agreed," he said solemnly and bit back his smirk as Eames' eyes narrowed before he abruptly seized his hand.  
  
"Good then. Now, did you know your manners are appalling? We've been outside your place for a good few minutes yet and you've still to offer me use of your bath, bed and beyond. It's just shoddy of you, Arthur, really."  
  
Arthur rolled his eyes, grinning as he started forward, pulling an eager Eames into step with him as they began the walk up his driveway to the thankfully empty premises.   
  
"Its Bed, Bath and Beyond actually," he corrected primly and Eames adopted an innocent expression that was totally at odds with his dust-smeared, rumpled form.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"The store. It's the other way around. Bed, Bath and Beyond."  
  
Eames squeezed his palm, carefully crushed against his own. "Oh, well I was aiming for a vague statement of intent, darling, but if you'd rather we go shopping...?" He shot him a devilish look and Arthur yanked him forward for a kiss rather than allow himself to laugh at such shamelessly awful behaviour. He then dragged Eames - somewhat roughly (desperately even) - up the steps to his door, shaking, laughing and breathless when Eames seized his mouth over and over again and felt a brief bolt of paralysing joy as reality seemed to surpass his old, aching dreams. Then with his own fever-bright, devilish smirk - he pulled Eames through his doorway and finally, finally started to put his prior fantasies of domestic, dirty bliss to good use.  
  
  
++  
  
  
Arthur dreamt of a bank vault, of muted gold boxes full of secrets (and surprisingly Dom, taking careful inventory) and Arthur watched, intrigued, as boxes of jewels, antiques and papers were all cracked open in turn until Dom opened a blue stickered box on a higher shelf, a veritable waterfall gushing forth as he turned the key and Arthur heard Dom say 'Whoops' as they were swept away and -  
  
Arthur spluttered, his head shaking back and forth against the pillow as he choked and tried to evade the water tumbling onto his face.  
  
"Whoops," an all-too-terrifyingly cheery voice remarked. "Did I wake you?"  
  
Arthur attempted to swallow his tongue as he jerked upright, still half-drowning as he came to full consciousness on a wave of horror, elbowing a sleeping Eames beside him as he fought his way up to a sitting position.  
  
"Mom," he croaked, his life flashing before his eyes.  
  
Arthur choked some more as the image of himself from last night seemed to paint itself across his eyes; the spectre of himself sprawled over Eames' lap on the sofa as he'd pushed three fingers in and out of Arthur, swallowing his own ecstatic moans at the same time as Eames had come thickly down his throat, looming large enough that he was somehow tempted to cover his mother’s unblinking, ferocious gaze.  
  
"Hello, sweetheart, we're back early. So sorry for the inconvenience. Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"  
  
Oh well, at least he wasn't dying a virgin.  
  
Eames struggled free of the bedding as her sardonic tone stunned them both into breathlessness, Arthur only able to blink in horror as his mother continued staring at him, his water glass from the bedside cabinet still dripping intermittently onto his chest where she held it over him.  
  
"H-Hi, Mom," he managed as Eames stood at the far side of the bed, his arms crossed before him as if to lessen their lack of clothing, Arthur taking a nanosecond to feel gratitude toward Eames that he had chosen to sleep in one of Arthur's t-shirts, as well as the boxers they both wore, his own half-nakedness making him tremble minutely beneath his mother’s gaze.  
  
"Hello Arthur," she said, no longer saccharine or acerbic, but horribly focused. "Let me reiterate - is there something you'd like to tell me?" She flashed her gaze to Eames then back to Arthur's shock-pale face. "Or should I just assume the worst?"  
  
Eames cleared his throat. "Ms. Wright," he began huskily, only to be cut short.  
  
"It's Taylor, actually. I had hoped you might remember as we've met several times now, Mr. Eames."  
  
Arthur convulsed in place for the span of a heartbeat before he shot to his feet and scrambled across the bed to stand at Eames' side, a nanosecond too slow to stop the shame and misery that blanched Eames' beloved face.  
  
"NO, ok no, that is, NOT alright, Mom. That is not what's going on here! I mean it is, obviously, it is to some extent, but it's not like you think it is... There's, there's nothing wrong here!"  
  
Arthur became aware of Rick's sturdy figure lurking just within the doorway, his eyes narrowed but steady as he took in the scene before him. "How long has this been going on?" he queried softly and Arthur fought to grip Eames' cold-as-stone fingers in his own, swallowing hard.  
  
"Not quite a week," he said at the same time as Eames said, "For nine months."  
  
"What? No! No, that's not right - that's, that's..."  
  
Too late. Rick's eyes - and his mother's - were on Eames like a pair of trained hawks.  
  
"Nine months?" his mother said quietly, too quietly, and Eames nodded, outraging Arthur further.  
  
"No it has not. I was interested from day one but nothing ever happened between us when I was his student, it's all NOW, all  _since I graduated_  - I mean yeah, obviously, there was an attraction but he ignored it, and me, and I-"  
  
"Is that right?" his mother interjected, her eyes flicking to Arthur before holding on Eames' face.  
  
"No," he said hoarsely and Arthur rounded on him, agape.  
  
"What? WHAT?! That's not true, why - what do you-?"  
  
"We kissed. At my house."  
  
"ONCE!"  
  
"That's not the point, Arthur. I-"  
  
Rick cleared his throat from the doorway and Arthur thought he caught a flash of understanding in his mother's stern gaze as he spun about.  
  
"Ok, yeah, what he said was true - we did kiss once but that was it. Nothing else at all until after I graduated, I swear!"  
  
"In February." His mother nodded understandingly and it took Eames startling at his side for Arthur to realise what she'd actually said.  
  
"I - how?" Eames rasped and Arthur squeezed his hand yet tighter.  
  
"Arthur. In February he went from happy to heartbroken in the space of a day. He told me it was because someone he wanted didn't want him." She cocked a brow and Eames' eyes flickered briefly shut.  
  
"I never said that," he whispered and tightened his grip on Arthur in turn.  
  
"I know." Arthur felt the smile bubble through even as his stomach tensed, months rolling back with a roar that filled his senses, a cool wall at his back and warm lips pressed fervently to his own. "I know."  
  
He met his mother’s gaze square on. "It wasn't ever a plan to get together. I wanted it, we both did, but I didn't know that then. I just thought... I knew I wanted to be with him so I came to him. But not until after I stopped being his student. I started this and I'm... I'm so sorry I didn't tell you straight off, but it was brand new and I was going to tell you tomorrow, when you were  _supposed_  to come home."  
  
His mother sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before offering them both a tight smile and moving to return the glass to its place on Arthur's nightstand.   
  
"I'm not going to pretend to be delighted by this but, Arthur, you're old enough to start making your own mistakes. God knows its maybe time you did, and Mr. Eames here is most definitely old enough, so I..." She paused, her frown resuming in full force and Arthur was forcibly struck by the familiar expression normally reflected back from his own mirror. "I must ask, however - just precisely how old you are, Mr. Eames?"  
  
"Twenty-six," Eames said gruffly, holding her gaze steadily even as Arthur despondently watched the shame building in the tense set to his shoulders.  
  
"Today," Arthur added waspishly, recalling the entirely different way in which he'd planned to awaken the birthday boy. "He's twenty-six today."  
  
A snort from across the room broke his frowning contest with his mother. Arthur blinked as he looked over to where Rick still stood, nearly forgotten, by the door, chuckling softly.  
  
"Twenty-six." He seemed both amused and seemingly reverent. "God, Viv, they're both just babies yet. I can barely remember anything before forty these days. He seems a nice enough fella, and Arthur's always known his own mind, moreso than half the neurologists I know, at that. Let's leave them to it, eh? Let 'em have his birthday like they planned it and you can grill them both properly tomorrow. How's that?"  
  
Arthur's mother rolled her head briefly on her shoulders and Arthur felt a pang of gratitude toward Rick so strong that he had to fight back the urge to cross the room and hug him. Both Arthur's father and Ari's dad had been lawyers, like his mom, and the tensions in both households had run high. It had taken a doctor to teach his eminently capable mother to let go.  
  
_Thank You,_  he mouthed across the room and was gratified when Rick inclined his head to include Eames in his brief smile.  
  
"You know what?" Arthur's mother sighed suddenly and crossed the space to lean into Rick's easy bulk. “You’re right. I'm too tired for this. I'm certainly too tired to interrogate either of them as to their intentions and the importance of safe sex, so it'll just have to wait until tomorrow."  
  
"MOM," Arthur expostulated (somewhat shrilly) and Eames squirmed, albeit with a slight chuckle, beside him.  
  
She grinned, easy and mocking, and waggled her fingers as they walked to the connecting door, arm in arm, before pausing on the threshold. "I mean it, though, dinner. Tomorrow night." She pointed back at the two of them. "Don't make me hunt you down. Now, you boys go out and celebrate Mr. Eames'-"  
  
"Just Eames, Mom. Just Eames."  
  
She inclined her head regally. "Go celebrate Eames' birthday then, just..." She sighed and a small crease appeared her brows for a moment as her eyes rested on where Arthur still gripped Eames' hand. "Have a nice time."  
  
"Thanks Mom," he whispered and just like that, the sparkle was back in her eyes.  
  
"Oh, don't thank me yet, sweetheart." She smiled, baring her small, white teeth at them both. "Until tomorrow, boys."  
  
And with that she walked out, drawing a softly chuckling Rick with her as the door shut smartly behind them.  
  
For a moment there was nothing but the sound of each of their somewhat stilted breaths before Eames groaned and spun, pressing his face into Arthur's throat.  
  
"Jesus. Bloody. Fuck," he muttered, thick and succinctly, into Arthur's skin and Arthur bit back a chuckle as he raised both arms to stroke over Eames' bowed head and down over his shoulders, rubbing in circles as Eames shifted closer, wrapping his arms about him in turn.  
  
"I-I'm so sorry, Eames," Arthur said quietly, startling as Eames' head shot up, eyes fierce as they locked gazes with barely an inch between them.  
  
"You're apologising? Yes, because you should have somehow sensed your mother would return a day ahead of schedule and catch us in bed together. Bad form, Arthur. Can you feel me judging you? This is me judging you. A lot."  
  
"Eames..." Arthur sighed, smiling despite the strained sensation at his temples, silenced as Eames' mouth covered his, hot, soft and sure as he pressed their lips together.  
  
"Arthur, darling," Eames murmured against his jaw as he drew back, "this was not your fault. Therefore shut up. Ok?"  
  
They swayed there for a moment longer, Eames' kiss smothering Arthur's quick huff of affectionate laughter, their mouths moving languorously against each other's until they separated on a soft, mutual sigh of reluctance.  
  
"Happy Birthday," Arthur whispered, blushing as Eames cupped his face, smiling, his eyes stroking possessively over Arthur's skin and they each exhaled shakily.  
  
"So," Eames said with a low rasp, "back over to my place?"  
  
Arthur swallowed and then smiled, slow and certain as his former plans seemed suddenly achievable once more and, all but purring, he leaned back in to press his mouth to the tight, warm whorl of Eames' ear to whisper fervently, "Oh GOD yes."  
  
He just needed to make a quick detour first.  
  
  
++  
  
  
"You," Eames declared with a distinctly put out sniff, "are a horrid tease, Arthur Wright."  
  
Arthur turned his head away from where he'd been closely examining the dragon fruit and blinked, honestly confused considering he had not yet begun to tease.  
  
"How so?" he drawled and swallowed a snigger as Eames crossed his arms over his chest, Arthur's donated t-shirt fitting him as badly (if somewhat over-faithfully) as did his donated running shorts.  
  
"You said we could run to my house and then I very vividly recall there being some mention of something deliciously nasty being in it for me were I to agree to said short run. There was never any mention made of a brief shopping expedition mid-way."  
  
Arthur rolled his eyes even as he cast them back toward the fresh fruit, rejecting the majority of dessert recipes as they raced through his mind, too time-consuming by far when there was far more carnal pleasures to be enjoyed than merely indulging his sweet tooth.  
  
"Patience is a virtue. I only need a few minutes to figure out what to make and then deliciously nasty moves right back to the top of the list, I promise."  
  
A heavy sigh followed him as he moved towards the strawberries, envisaging the nice sweetly gooey Pavlova he could swiftly assemble in almost as much detail as he was imagining Eames' plump, luscious mouth wrapped around the ripe and vivid fruit.  
  
He shivered, goose bumps chasing themselves across his skin as he placed two punnets in the basket as Eames stepped close once more.  
  
"Patience is a luxury afforded only to the young, darling, and I am aging even as we speak. Indeed I begin to fear I may be all of thirty years old before you finish bloody shopping."  
  
Arthur cocked a brow at the sarcastic and decidedly snarky figure as Eames dramatically leaned against the shelves, the very figure of ill-used suffering, his eyes sparkling as their gazes met.  
  
"Look, in normal human relationships when one of the people isn't a raging drama queen, it is customary for there to be some sort of celebration of the continuation of life, perhaps with a party or a gift and, as I am currently unable to provide you with either one, I'm afraid it falls to you to suffer - silently, if you wouldn't mind - while I undertake the onerous, and clearly evil, boyfriend-ly duty of making you dinner. That is, of course, if you feel you can survive that long?"  
  
Smirking, he turned to Eames only to find the same clear, piercing gaze that had once stopped him dead as he ran from the confused mutterings of his head and heart.  
  
"Your what duty, dear heart?"  
  
Brow furrowing, Arthur cast his mind back through his words, stiffening in horror even before they finished repeating themselves within his head.  
  
_Boyfriend-ly...boyfriend...boyfriend...boyfriend._  
  
"I uh, that is - I mean, I know we haven't talked about it, but considering the past week and Paris and everything-"  
  
His breath left him on a sudden rush as the basket pressed abruptly and awkwardly into his stomach, the opposing edge pressed against Eames' own abdomen, the only barrier between them as Eames' voice dropped to a low, amused rumble.  
  
"We haven't talked about it, no, but were we not in an area where any former colleague, student or parent could happen upon my ravishing your exceedingly fine self up against the shelves then I would show you just how precisely and delightedly in agreement I am with the moniker of boyfriend."  
  
Arthur swallowed, his shorts too flimsy for the heat building in his body as he mentally ran through the items in his basket and surmised that it was more than enough, his eyes slipping shut as Eames lifted a heavy knuckled hand to fleetingly trail his thumb across the curve of Arthur's jaw.  
  
"I think that's, uh," he coughed, mouth dry, "I think that's all of it then, shopping-wise."  
  
"You've got everything you need?"  
  
Eames' gaze was teasing, flames licking partway into the amused gleam as his eyes dropped to where Arthur wet his lips, smiling crookedly.  
  
"In actual fact, I can think of a few other things I need...like, a lot."  
  
"A lot, eh?"  
  
Arthur's grin turned as filthy as he could allow himself without blushing.  
  
"Desperately."  
  
They stood a moment, matching pleased grins somewhat diluting the heat crackling between them despite the basket in their way, before Arthur ducked his head, blushing ferociously and huffing an awkward laugh.  
  
"So, checkout then?"  
  
Eames stepped back, restraining a smile as he nodded, turning away and then freezing in place as Arthur dropped the basket back to his side.  
  
"What's...?" The question stilled on Arthur's lips as he followed Eames' line of sight and found an equally frozen pair - Ari and Rob - staring back at them from the end of the aisle.  
  
Arthur glanced sideways in time to watch the brief flicker of horror, quickly masked, as it flickered into politeness and Eames smiled thinly at the pair now cautiously approaching.  
  
"Robert, Ariadne, how nice to see you both. I was just saying to Arthur here how strange it is to run into former colleagues and students now that I've left the shining hallways and hallowed classrooms of the academy, so it must be even stranger for you lot..."  
  
He trailed off at Rob's slowly shaken head and clenched fists, his voice low but furious.  
  
"No. Don't. Don't do that, don't make out like you guys aren't, like you aren't..."  
  
His eyes met Arthur's suddenly and he all but flinched from the depth of hurt intermingled with the quiet fury.  
  
"Him, right? All that time it was him and you never said a word to either of us??"  
  
This time Arthur did flinch, noticeably, as did Ari at Rob's side, and before either of them could even begin to formulate a sentence Rob made a feral, raw noise of hurt that made Arthur's stomach flip. He stood motionless with horror as Rob made to push past him, away from Ari and Arthur both before, abruptly, there was an obstacle in his path.  
  
"What you think you know here, right now," Eames said softly, in a tone that would have soothed a frightened thoroughbred, his hand gentle at the centre of Rob's chest, "is only a fraction of the actuality, Robert. As far as I am aware, Ariadne figured out Arthur's secret some time ago and kept it in the way that all true friends do. As for Arthur, I can only imagine that he said very little for the same reason he didn't approach me until after we were both free of Dyson's, because it seemed a hopeless case. I understand that I have you to thank for his change of heart."  
  
Rob blinked, his expression softening from stony to confused, caught in Eames' words even as he looked at Arthur.  
  
"We only have this moment once..." Arthur prompted, cringing, embarrassed far beyond blushing to be quoting Rob back to himself as the catalyst of Arthur's sudden reckless choice to be with Eames, age and everything else be damned, swallowing as realisation lit Rob's previously dark expression.  
  
"You mean, only since...?"  
  
"Yeah, only since."  
  
Eames dropped his hand and stepped away, leaving Rob and Arthur facing each other with two awkward spectators at their backs, Ari braving Eames' gaze for a conciliatory grimace as Arthur glanced around in fear of further classmates.  
  
"So, uh..."  
  
"Maybe I could..."  
  
They each tailed off, words tangling mid-air as the awkwardness rose between them again until Arthur laughed, shifting his basket to the other arm as he lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck.  
  
"Ok, look, I, I should have told you, or maybe I shouldn't but I hadn't yet, but the thing is I was  _going to_ , so maybe in a few days we could catch up or something?"  
  
Rob nodded, eyes low, as his mouth twisted into something approximating a nervous smile. "Sure, yeah, that sounds ok."  
  
"Ok then."  
  
"Ok."  
  
"Ok."  
  
They all held in place for an unsteady, silent beat before Ari rolled her eyes, scoffing loudly as she reached out and nabbed Rob by the arm again.  
  
"Yeah, ok, no, I've been sitting on this goldmine of gossip for way too long. You can get the official another time but for now we're getting ice cream, as promised, and then I'm going to dish you so much dirt you'll think I work for TMZ."  
  
Eames barked a laugh and, before Arthur could absorb her surprised rant, he snatched the basket and headed down the aisle towards the checkout, leaving Arthur to watch his weakly chuckling form retreat before turning back to meet Rob's gaze as Ari dragged him away, towards the freezer at the back of the store.  
  
On a whim he mouthed ' _thank you_ ' and Rob shrugged, grinning weakly, and Arthur took the proffered olive branch, glancing back towards Eames then back to Rob before mouthing, ' _No really, THANK YOU_ ' with a lascivious, mischievous smile and Rob laughed, warm and wholeheartedly as Ari dragged him away. A weight fell neatly from Arthur's chest, forgotten, to the store floor as he made his way quickly to Eames' side at the self-service checkout.  
  
"So," Eames began, tone amused despite the tightness around his eyes, "we're two for two thus far - perhaps we should stop by a firing squad on the way back to mine, see how that goes, hm?"  
  
Arthur, standing as casually apart from Eames as he could bear, grimaced.  
  
"Yeah, this isn't quite the birthday I had planned for you, a little too much sneak attack, not enough snuggling."  
  
His frown eased somewhat as Eames' smile widened, their hands briefly colliding as Arthur slipped his card through to pay, "Snuggling eh?"  
  
Arthur swiftly bagged his supplies, a plan formulating as he sent an all too casual glance to the birthday boy from beneath his lashes.  
  
"Oh absolutely. But that part comes after."  
  
They took a bag each, walking a sensible distance apart, looking for all the world like two acquaintances talking, each keeping their actions and glances casual as they walked out of the store.  
  
"After?" Eames purred politely and Arthur smirked, having spied an idling cab at the curbside.   
  
"After," he concurred.  
  
He strode quickly to the cab and leaned down to speak to the driver before Eames could reach them. Arthur walked to the trunk to deposit his own bag, nabbing Eames' to do the same before walking to the front again where he handed the cabbie a 20 (a more than healthy tip included for such a short drive) and stood smiling while the groceries drove off without them.  
  
"Darling," Eames began cautiously, "not to question your methods but I tend to equate grocery shopping with keeping the groceries once paid for?"  
  
Arthur let himself move as close to Eames as he dared, smirk still firmly in place.  
  
"The driver is going to leave the bags by your door. We won't be far behind so it's not a problem. Or had you forgotten our deal?"  
  
A frown briefly graced Eames' classically handsome brow, suspicion narrowing his gaze.  
  
"Ah yes, because you so desperately want to run home, am I right?"  
  
"What I want isn't the issue here," Arthur demurred, voice as casual as he could make it despite the growing heat in the pit of his belly, "it's whatever you want... I mean, of course that's if you beat me... Can't go easy on you just because it's your birthday can I?"  
  
Eames' eyes were like steel against Arthur's skin now, a spark relighting the depths of his previously strained expression.  
  
"Beat you? As in, I beat you home, I get a prize?"  
  
"Exactly." Arthur wet his lips, cursing his flimsy shorts as Eames took a moment to pretend to ponder the arrangement.  
  
"And if you win?"  
  
Shrugging a single shoulder, Arthur made a ' _meh_ ' noise, smirking again.  
  
"Bragging rights? No more whinging when I organise your packing system from 'hellish' to 'efficient'? I'm good with either."  
  
Eames snorted, eyes soft even as his smile turned wicked.  
  
"And if I do win?"  
  
Arthur stood shoulder to shoulder with him, standing on one leg then the other as he stretched in readiness, smile innocent as he glanced across to meet Eames' steady gaze.  
  
"Anything you want. As in  _anything._  You want me to call you Master? Wear kitten ears? Kitten heels? Whatever you want, you win, it's yours."  
  
Eames' nostrils flared on a deep, long breath inward and then,  
  
"Kitten heels you say?"  
  
Arthur laughed, blushing in horror and arousal all at once before looking him dead in the eye once more.  
  
"Anything," he confirmed, then burst forward, laughing as he ran.  
  
He kept his lead almost all the way home, Eames cursing him soundly in between initial guffaws which cost him both in breath and distance, before dropping back at greater and greater intervals as they sped along Eames' street.  
  
"I know," Eames roared, panting, "what you're doing!"  
  
"Do you now?!" Arthur roared back, laughing and put on the extra spurt to put him back in front as they approached Eames' place, the shopping bags just visible before the door, as promised.  
  
The house driveway loomed before them and Eames put on a gratifying burst of speed as they approached but Arthur was younger, faster, and far better used to running. He moved ahead with ease, tearing up the drive with Eames hot at his heels as they approached the front door -  
  
\- Only to promptly halt, ducking to one side as Eames soared past him, unchecked, to all but collide with the door, spinning breathless as he leaned heavily against the wood, both elated and astonished as he stared back at Arthur, equally breathless and elated as he gazed back at him.  
  
"Anything you want." Arthur panted roughly, voice thick with heat that choked him just seeing the flush and sweat of Eames before him. "Anything you want, Eames."  
  
Eames smiled, dark and hot, and straightened up, opening the door with an unsteady hand before reaching to all but drag both Arthur and the groceries inside.  
  
"Oh darling," he muttered against salt slick lips, Arthur panting into his mouth, "I know exactly what I want."  
  
  
++

 

Arthur took several deep, even breaths, unwilling to let Eames know just how entirely undone he was at just being watched as he carefully put away the shopping.  
  
“What...what do you want then?”  
  
Closing the cupboard he moved to the refrigerator to put away the last of the fixings for the feast, swallowing heavily as he felt Eames move to stand just behind him, his own breaths erratic, hot against his nape.  
  
“Do whatever it is you need with the groceries darling, then you can give me everything my wicked heart desires, like a good little birthday present, hm?”  
  
Heart drumming in his chest, overeager as the rest of his body to simply sink into the delightful bulk now pressed against his back, Arthur placed the meat and fruit unsteadily inside and closed the fridge before whimpering softly. His wrists were lifted in a scalding grip to place his hands at shoulder height on the cool white of the refrigerator before him.  
  
"Leave those right there for me Arthur darling. I prefer to unwrap my gifts myself."  
  
"Yessir, Mr. Birthday Boy, sir," Arthur managed weakly even as his inner voice went berserk with heat.  
  
_Fuck... fuck... fuck... he's going to fuck me up against the refrigerator... What if someone looks in the window and sees us, sees him balls deep in me right here in the kitchen oh fuck... fuck... fuck..._  
  
"Very obedient. I approve..." Eames murmured thickly, mouth pressed open and scorching at the skin or Arthur's nape, busy hands rucking and shoving Arthur's t-shirt up and up his back until he forced the material over his head, leaving it rumpled and binding where it bunched across Arthur's shoulders and sternum.   
  
"Now that's more like it."  
  
Face burning with delight and an odd, thrilling mortification, Arthur attempted to keep his writhing to a minimum as Eames dragged his plush, worshipful lips down the sweat slick line of his spine, his hands moving round to pluck and pinch at Arthur's nipples as he sucked messy, wet kisses against each notch of Arthur's vertebrae.  
  
"Eames. Eames, I... I'm all gross, I'm, I need a shower or... I'm all sweaty... Eames?"  
  
Arthur's croaked words, initially half-chiding, half-amused made their way from hoarse to urgent, his legs wobbling in time with his voice as Eames knelt, drawing Arthur's shorts and underwear down as he went, and rubbing stubbly, growled kisses into the small of his spine.  
  
"When... I want you...clean," his words slurred into the sheen growing more pronounced on Arthur's skin as the heat thickened his blood, Eames' chin almost resting in the dimples above Arthur's butt cheeks, "I'll fucking have you in the shower. But... right now," he slurped his way down, pulling the shorts to Arthur's ankles, "I want you here, dripping sweat and filthy in my kitchen."  
  
Eames butted a shoulder between Arthur's thighs before hefting the weight of one leg onto it, forcibly lifting Arthur's right foot so he could drag off the offending shorts, leaving Arthur mostly bare, with his top bunched across his collar bones, shorts and underwear lying limply atop his left trainer, and panting wetly against the cool of the metal fridge-front.  
  
"Uhm, that's um... that's... oh - oh holy shit..."  
  
Arthur tried to formulate a sensible response but, beyond the prickle of sweat both blooming and cooling on his skin and the thunderous pulse of his heart, knocking beneath his damp and bunched up t-shirt, all he could focus on was the slick hot darts of Eames' tongue as it worked its way downward from his tailbone into the clenched crease of his ass.  
  
Eames had words enough for both of them, muttering odd, fervent words of praise and enjoyment as he took little nips and sucks as he made his way down over Arthur's buttocks, detouring to bite at the ripe curve here, swiping his tongue in broad strokes to ease the sting as he worked his way back, hands now braced at the back of Arthur's thighs, pushing his ass-cheeks up and (it seemed) fully open to his gaze as Arthur sagged forward against the fridge, wheezing in startled pleasure as his cock pressed up, rigid and already beginning to drip against the chilly metal.   
  
Reaching the bottom of the increasingly perspiration-smoothed channel, Eames pressed thick, calloused thumbs into the meat of Arthur's cheeks and pressed him open enough to place a lingering, oddly tender kiss against the spasming, tight hole before immediately laving a heavy, hot stripe with his tongue directly over and almost into Arthur's depths, repeating the action again and again even as he continued to speak into the heat of Arthur's skin.   
  
"You can't know how I used to think about this, just in the last, last few moments... right before I'd come... refusing to admit I was thinking... thinking about you... your damn smart mouth and.... tiny, tiny fucking running shorts... and I'd think about how much I wanted to fucking taste you, right there on the track... and then, once I had you, I've let myself think about France... about how... how long it'll be, how long I'm supposed to wait before we go glove-free... about when I can come in you, watch you fucking drip with it, lick it back out...God...I want to buy you a fucking treadmill for wherever the fuck we end up, fuck you till you're full then watch you run on it while it's dripping down your thighs..."  
  
Arthur keened and mashed his face against the fridge, disobedient for the space of a breath as he pulled his palms from the door to brace, pressing his forehead to his crossed forearms, sobbing as his position pushed his hips back, Eames tilting his jaw upward with an obliged hum as he lapped and kissed deeper at Arthur's flickering hole, growling a ravenous noise into the give of Arthur's flesh.  
  
"Don't...don't... oh-oh god DON'T..." Arthur pleaded messily, mouth all but mashed against his forearm, cockhead skidding on the fridge as pulse after pulse of slippery precum gathered at the head with every word, every image, every stroke of Eames' tongue against him.  
  
Eames pulled his face back from between Arthur's trembling thighs, a hand shooting swiftly upward to press hot, yet gentle, circles against the arch of his spine where Arthur now leant heavily forward against the refrigerator.  
  
"Don't what, my darling? Do you not like it? It's all right. Ignore what I said, Arthur, it's not for everyone, darling. It's fine if you want me to stop, I'm so sorry-"  
  
"Don't..." Arthur interrupted harshly, chest aching with the wall of heat and want pounding within, summoning a herculean force from deep inside to lift his head, sweaty bangs falling in his eyes as he looked over his shoulder into Eames' blazingly red and overheated face, gaze on his swollen, messy lips as he ground out, "Don't... stop... Don't ever stop, Eames, oh fucking GOD don't stop please...?!"   
  
He had barely a second to luxuriate in the feral, ecstatic gleam in Eames' eyes before the gentle hand at his spine had jerked his hips back into place and Eames slurped his way into motion with such relish that Arthur had to ease his head back onto his arms, giddy with elation, a bizarrely hot sense of wrongdoing, and the impending need to come his brains out.  
  
Gently, he pushed his hips back into the covetous yet caring grip of Eames' palms and was rewarded as Eames grunted approvingly, swiping harder with his tongue, and Arthur hummed to himself, slumping further against the fridge as Eames' chin pressed into his balls, his tongue pressing deeper into him, somehow, when suddenly he felt something in him abruptly relax.   
  
Eames crowed against him in triumph as his tongue stabbed into him over and over. Arthur wailed in shock and toe-curling delight as Eames literally made out with his hole, groaning and humming into him as stabbed inward a little deeper each time. Arthur's cock was throbbing and frantically tapping against the cool metal with every shift and heartbeat, and then Eames was sliding his blunt, rough thumb tip in alongside his cock and...  
  
Arthur choked, forgetting for a blinding-white eternity how to pull in or expel oxygen. His cries strangled in his chest as he bucked clumsily between Eames' mouth and the fridge, the latter liberally striped with come in moments. Arthur wheezed out his sobs of completion as he remembered how to breathe, and his body sagged too hard for his newly fawn-like legs to hold as he tumbled into Eames' waiting hold.  
  
Eames held him for a beat or so, his head tilted back, senses reeling as Eames panted and laughed breathlessly against his neck. Arthur whimpered as he was pushed onto the floor and twisted onto his knees. He opened his eyes in time to watch Eames stand, jerking at his own straining and precome stained shorts, pulling his already addictively meaty cock out. Arthur moaned in approval, mouth eagerly falling open as Eames gripped his hair with one hand and steered his cockhead to Arthur's ready lips with the other.  
  
"Hold still darling, keep your eyes shut for me." He panted harshly and before Arthur could take in the request, Eames' thick, slick cockhead slid across his mouth, back and across again and he groaned, both in frustration and approval, wanting it in his mouth but wanting Eames to use him for this, to take exactly what he needed more.  
  
He pushed his tongue up to rest just under the gap of his parted lips, cradling the weight of Eames' girth as he rubbed them both raw with hard, sharp strokes over his face, pulling Arthur's hair tight in his fist as his hips stuttered and the question of whether he wanted to come in Arthur's mouth was lost in the rush of come across his face, mostly spilled over his empty lips, with a fair amount spattering his cheeks and jaw. Eames groaned, only taking the barest moment to steady himself from his orgasm before he tumbled down, jerking Arthur forward to messily kiss his come into Arthur's happily waiting mouth.  
  
Sucking the silky, salty thickness from Eames' tongue, Arthur abruptly jerked backward, eyes wide on Eames' own pleasure-blurred gaze.  
  
"You, you just had your tongue in my ass," he blurted, a few as yet still dripping beads of ejaculate trailing down his cheek and over his lips and jaw. Eames smiled at him with enough inherent filth that Arthur found the spare blood to blush, once again the inexperienced one.  
  
"Why yes, yes I did," Eames murmured, eyes flickering from the mess on Arthur's face to his puffy lips and pleasure-addled, heavy lidded gaze. "That mean you don't want to be kissed now, hm?"  
  
Arthur swayed against him, neither of them propped too solidly against the fridge, locked together with tangled legs and Eames' fingers still locked in Arthur's hair.  
  
"S'kinda gross," He murmured, ruining his point by licking his lips and leaning back in to kiss the smug grin from Eames' face and ignoring the chuckles pressed into his mouth. He pouted briefly as Eames used his grip on Arthur's hair to break the kiss, turning his head this way and that until he had thoroughly licked the come from Arthur's cheeks.  
  
"Well, now I know why you were so upset when I cut my hair," Arthur snarked, breaking away to rub his palms over his cheeks, nose wrinkled at the combination of residual semen and the knowledge that his face had just been 'cleaned' by the tongue recently in his ass.  
  
Eames laughed, flushing again despite his already pinkened cheeks.  
  
"Yes, well, I suppose it's possible that I maybe had some tentative fantasies about steering you by it, but it seems to me that we manage perfectly well with your current coiffure, wouldn't you say?"  
  
Arthur quirked a brow, strangling down his urge to beam, and ask detailed questions about said fantasies and at what point he'd like to try them, limiting himself instead to a haughty, "Well, we here at 'Birthday Boytoys R Us' pride ourselves on giving the customer exactly what their hot little heart desires. Can I interest you in a customer survey or have you any... further requests of the service… Sir?"  
  
Eames lifted both hands to cup Arthur's face, eyes serious despite his teasing smile.  
  
"Best gift I ever had and you can put that on the feedback form. Underlined, in caps."  
  
Arthur grinned, and leaned in to kiss the strange bitter-sweetness from Eames' expression, staying for long moments as they kissed lazily, breaths mingling as their heartbeats slowed together.  
  
"Now," Eames murmured, pulling back, "about these further services of yours..."  
  
Arthur whined, his spirit willing but his body mostly comprised of wet noodles.  
  
"...later on, I want to be so deep in you I forget what my name is and you forget yours and we both have to live like crazy amnesiacs who can't keep their hands off each other..." He paused, claiming a quick kiss from Arthur's swiftly smiling mouth, "but for now, I want a shower, a bloody good nap and to eat the delicious dinner my absurdly wonderful boyfriend insisted on making me."  
  
Something a little like laughter and tears both caught briefly in Arthur's throat and so he nodded, dropping his eyes to duck forward and pepper quick, greedy kisses to Eames' already overused mouth, sighing as he pressed their foreheads together.  
  
"Like I said birthday boy, anything you want."  
  
  
+++  
  
  
"Oh for fucks sake!"  
  
Arthur snapped awake on a flashback seemingly, with Eames expostulating in disbelief in place of his own panic this time; a looming wrathful figure stood over them and Arthur flinched, waiting for his mother's barbed words, blinking when the voice that raged above them had a very different and distinct intonation.  
  
"DESPICABLE, do you hear me, Frederic? This is beyond sick! I should report you!"  
Eames was rigid with fury (and shame? Oh please not shame again) at his side and Arthur disentangled himself from where they'd been happily snuggled, intertwined after leisurely showers (separately, Arthur first so he could pop the meat in the slow cooker, barely able to concentrate past his still trembling thighs upon returning to the kitchen) and a drowsily fanciful discussion of their time to come in Paris.  
  
Now, instead of waking from more than pleasant snuggling to the buzzer and the smell of good food on the air (although actually, it did smell pretty good already so that almost helped) it was to the wash of cold horror to find his previously beloved English teacher berating his current boyfriend slash also former English teacher for said snuggling.  
  
"Miss Girard-Hughes!" Arthur blurted, actually happy to see her for the nanosecond it took for the rest of his brain to fully wake, pleased to see the woman who had worked with him when he'd shown interest beyond the boundaries of the lesson plan, who he'd regularly conversed with in her native French, the woman who had told Eames to stay away from Arthur. "I, I mean – Ms. Cobb, I - it's been such a long time, how are you?"  
  
Ms. Mallorie Cobb nee Girard-Hughes straightened from scowling ferociously almost directly into Eames' face, her expression cooling as she pressed white-knuckled hands down her front, smoothing away non-existent creases from her dress.  
  
"Arthur Wright," she uttered, her accent as thrillingly mellifluous - even past her frosty appearance - as the last day he had seen her in class only a year before, "I would, of course, usually be delighted to encounter a former student of such impeccable character and manners no matter the locale but I think, in this horrifying and hideous instance, I find I must make an exception."  
  
Arthur gaped for a moment but Eames snorted, loudly and with as much derision written across his face as he could muster whilst scrambling up from the sofa.  
  
"Oh would you bloody leave it out Mal, for fucks sake, I get it, I do. You told me to not bloody well lay a hand on your student. Well he isn't now, not yours, not mine anymore. And more to the bloody point he WASN'T at the point this began so you can just bloody shove the whole disapproving schoolmarm thing right up your arse, alright?"  
  
He clenched his fists repeatedly at his sides as Arthur slid smoothly from his seat, moving to run a gentle palm across the strained expanse of Eames' shoulders, tension written in every sinew, his face twisted in a fully-fledged glare that Arthur hadn't seen in weeks.  
  
"Ok, before this gets out of hand, let me just say that Eames is right, Mrs. Cobb. Nothing happened between us when I was a student, barring a painful rejection, and then once graduated I wanted to end things on better terms and, having talked, we've ended up on better terms than I ever could have dreamed of. I get that it's a bit of a shock, god knows my mother is less than delighted about it, but this, what we have, it’s real. No one is in any position of power or taking advantage of anyone else and I'm not underage and haven't been for almost the entirety of the time Eames has known me and no one... is, this is... this is..."  
  
Arthur blinked, his carefully expressed words failing him all at once as he looked away from the Cobbs to catch Eames gazing at him, all but enraptured, fury flickering out as swiftly as it had ignited as a small smile softened his features once more.  
  
"This is real," Eames echoed and Arthur couldn't help but beam at him, blushing before a bizarre noise broke through their reverie, an odd mixture between gagging and snorting in derision.  
  
{"Oh god, save me from the repulsive stupidity of wretched idiots and the children who think themselves in love with them..."}  
  
Arthur sighed, lifting an abruptly weary hand to rub at the creases he knew were forming on his brow. Eames all but snarled gently as an equally fatigued voice crumbled the tension reforming between them.  
  
"Arthur, it's uh good to see you again, if admittedly somewhat surprising. How about you and I go catch up and leave these two to vent their mutual spleen without the worry of collateral damage?"  
  
Dom, steady eyed despite his uncomfortable flush, nodded his head toward the kitchen and for a moment Arthur was torn, guilt warring with self-preservation, but then he found himself nodding, slowly, eyes back on Eames as he moved his hand to squeeze at the already tightening, hunching line of his shoulders.  
  
"Dinner won't be long," he said in a tone he hoped suggested that it would be alright despite the glare resting all the more heavily on Eames for the touch of Arthur's hand and, suppressing a sigh, he moved through the slatted swing doors with Dom, somehow silently supportive, following behind.  
  
Moving to the buzzer, Arthur cancelled the imminent additional noise and moved to assemble the accompaniments for the pot roast, glancing at Dom, who had hesitated upon finding himself perhaps not quite as far from the front lines as he'd hoped.  
  
Or... perhaps he was just as revolted as his wife.  
  
Arthur cocked a brow at him, determined to remain, or at least appear, unfazed.  
  
"Want a drink?"  
  
As if moving through mud, Dom lifted his arm from his side as if only just recalling it was there and Arthur, equally surprised, realised that Dom had been clasping a ribbon bedecked bottle of Eames' preferred whisky.  
  
"We...were going to order in, get drunk and make Eames feel old," he murmured, as if recalling all events prior to walking into Eames' house as foggy details from a dream.  
  
A notion struck and part of Arthur's mind recoiled even as the rest fell decided, his lips already moving.  
  
"Well there's certainly more than enough to go around for dinner but it'll go better with wine. Perhaps after dessert?"  
  
Dom blinked slowly before abruptly squinting into the same quizzical not quite grin Arthur recalled from the store, warmth tickling at the edges of the odd expression.  
  
"Yes, yes absolutely. That smells wonderful? I assume it's red if that's beef?"  
  
Dom moved to shift himself awkwardly onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar, smiling as Arthur poured him a glass of the previously decanted Malbec that the internet had sworn blind would suit the stew.  
  
He moved away, hands needing to be busy as he tried valiantly to not listen to the rapidly rising volume of Gallic abuse from the next room, setting the bread before him as he methodically sliced it into hearty, rustic chunks that he could also butter momentarily to stop himself from shattering apart.  
  
"So..." Dom said, not quite awkward, but apologetic in the stillness between them. Arthur cut him off before he could say more.  
  
"The thing is," he said with frustration, waving the bread knife at the doors that really did nothing in terms of soundproofing, "they both know I speak French. Miss Girard-Hughes delighted in my fluency, I outright shocked the hell out of Eames explaining to him in French that I was about to move to France. So what is the point of fighting in French? I can hear them, I can understand them, if this is in any way meant to spare me... wait," he gestured again with the knife towards Dom, oddly gratified by the tiny flinch, "Is it to spare you?"  
  
Dom opened his mouth but seemingly blanked for a moment, blinking his former reply back to abruptly query. "You're moving to France? When?"  
  
Slathering butter viciously over the slices, Arthur fought to rein in a rising feeling of petulance, the background fury rubbing his nerves in entirely the wrong direction.  
  
"Soon," he bit out. "And Eames is coming too. With me."  
  
He looked up, ready to challenge any expostulation from Dom's direction, only to find an odd softening of Dom's features, something almost melancholy as he held Arthur's gaze.  
  
"So, then," he said in a tone so intent it made Arthur want to shuffle his feet and blush, "What you said before. It's really real between you two, huh?"  
  
Arthur allowed himself a small smile as he looked back down at the bread.  
  
"Certainly feels that way."  
  
His words were soft and so when the gentle tone of almost reverence was broken by a shriek of fury from Mrs. Cobb in the next room, Dom winced in time with Arthur.  
  
"Family," he said weakly. "No one loves you more so no one knows where better to place the knife."  
  
Arthur's brows felt like they had been glued to his hairline.  
  
"Umm, WHAT? They're related?"  
  
Dom blinked at him before smiling somewhat grimly.  
  
"He's likely not wanted to talk about her, all things considered." Arthur winced and Dom continued with a grin, "but yeah, they're cousins. Eames' mom was a Hughes before marrying Eames' dad. I don't know all the childhood horrors yet, but Mal's dad and both of Eames' folks were teachers so they liked to make the most of summers. They holidayed all together in France, pretty much all through their childhoods."  
  
Arthur took a moment to absorb the information, something warm unfurling at the idea of a young Eames scampering about with a beloved cousin even as something cold and guilty knotted tighter as the realisation that Eames had spent all year fighting to not disappoint someone of vital importance to him and, because of Arthur, was fighting that person right now for him.  
  
"Excuse me a moment," he murmured inattentively as he drifted round the breakfast bar, past a quizzical Dom to hesitate before the doors, this time listening intently.  
  
{"I don't CARE,"} Mal Girard-Hughes - sorry, Cobb - was seething, {"You can find yourself any other boytoy in any other place but you do not come here, take the job I recommended you for, take the reputation of yourself and the institution and throw it away by having a fling with a student! I will not stand for it!"}  
  
{"Well, I'm obviously SO SORRY that you feel that way, Mallorie,"} Eames hissed back, at his most snidely formal, {"but as I keep telling you this is NOT a fling and he is not just some boytoy I could find any bloody where, and as he is no longer my student I couldn't care a bloody fig what you'll stand for because I'm KEEPING HIM, gottit?!"}  
  
Rolling his eyes, Arthur pushed the doors open on a whispered negation from Dom behind him.  
  
"Eames," he said deadpan, in English, "we've been over this. I'm not a puppy. My choice to be with you is not the same as you keeping me. Prove to me you can keep a house plant alive and I'll consider the possibility of a goldfish in the future."  
  
Eames tried valiantly to maintain his scowl but had to lift a hand to hide his smirk behind as Mal gaped at Arthur, wind utterly ripped from her sails mid-rant.  
  
"Mrs. Cobb," Arthur moved on pleasantly, "Dom told me the plans for dinner and as it happens we've more than enough and he's graciously accepted the offer to stay on both your behalf. Dinner will be ready in just a moment, can I get you a glass of wine?"  
  
Mal swallowed, smoothing away the imagined wrinkles from her outfit once again, mentally restoring herself before smiling frostily.  
  
"But of course," she agreed a little too smoothly, "although surprising to be offered alcohol by a minor, it is by far the most preferable surprise of the day."  
  
Arthur dipped his head, gracious in his restrained temper.  
  
"I hope you'll feel differently once you try the stew." He allowed himself a smile towards Eames, inclining his head towards the kitchen and he watched as several boulders seemed to tumble from his shoulders, smiling back as he moved to follow Arthur into the kitchen.  
  
"Lead on Macduff," he whispered as he stepped directly behind Arthur and a laugh gurgled his way up and out of him despite his fervent desire to remain implacable under the heavy weight of Mal's gaze. He looked back over his shoulder to berate Eames for once again tempting bad luck only to have Eames press a quick, soft kiss to his cheek, something in it thankful, and abruptly he found he needed a moment to steady his hands before he could move to begin serving the meal.  
  
Mal scoffed low in her throat again but this time Arthur caught the imploring look Dom sent her way, drawing him onto the stool opposite him and squeezing her hand tightly.  
Eames hesitated for only a moment before taking the stool next to her and Arthur felt like kissing him properly, company be damned, for the act of gallantry. He quickly decked out the small breakfast space with the bread basket, wine and glasses before returning to dish each person a generous plate of his (hopefully delicious) beef stew and taking his own place next to Dom.  
  
Opposite him, Eames smiled and lifted his glass. "To the chef," he toasted.  
  
"Oh no, no no..." Arthur demurred. "It's your birthday - most definitely to  _you_."  
  
Mal rolled her eyes but Dom lifted his glass, clinking against both Eames' and Arthur's and leaving it to Mal's usually good manners to rise to the occasion. Grudgingly, they did. "To you, Eames - Happy Birthday," she said wearily as if all the fight was draining from her. "May you gain in wisdom what you have in spirit."  
  
Dom visibly deflated and Eames murmured "Mal?" in a tone of quiet entreaty otherwise missing from their conversation.  
  
"No, it's ok." Arthur said, calm in the same way he'd been when desperate to not show fear to school bullies over the years, "we can talk about it as long as there's not going to be any more insults and abuse tossed around."  
  
He lifted a querying brow toward Mal and she dipped her chin, and something like regret made her beautiful doe eyes somehow even more luminous as she took a mouthful of food.  
  
"This stew," the crude words managed to still sound wonderful slipping off her tongue a moment later, "is absolutely divine, Arthur.  _Merveilleux_."  
  
Her words were swiftly echoed by both Dom and Eames and Arthur inclined his head, thanking them all and struggling to not blush again, attention still locked firmly on Mal, certain she was only considering her words, proven right but a moment later when she spoke gently,  
  
"Arthur, you must not think this is in any way about you. Had you met Eames at another time in the future, or crossed my path at a time when it felt right, I would have happily introduced you. You were a wonderful student and a joy to spend time with, but that is not what upsets me. I am upset by the situation. A teacher cannot, and should not, ever have romantic feelings for a student, no matter how close they may feel in age or common interests. I would be just as horrified if you had been a, a 'jock' or maths geek, or one of the dope heads who think the faculty do not see them getting stoned behind the library-"  
  
"But I'm not. I'm not any of those fictional worrying students making a play for their teacher," Arthur interjected firmly. "The situation is unfortunate, granted, but it's not what you're making it out to be." He took a careful swallow of his wine, trying to not look to Eames for his reactions. "I did overstep the line as a student. I did it unthinkingly, actually, we were talking about the pool just installed at home and I sort of just invited him over. It was mortifying, and more so when he very clearly and firmly turned me down."  
  
He met Mal's eyes and withheld a flinch at the triumph in them, unsure as to what she felt he'd lost in his defence of their relationship.  
  
"Your mother had a pool installed. How nice for you both." She smirked. "I don't imagine Eames was who she thought you'd bring home for a 'pool party' hmm? Or do you not live with your mother any longer?"  
  
Eames and Arthur each spoke at once.  
  
"I do, yes, but only until we leave for France."  
  
"Actually, Arthur has been living in his own separate flat on the property for, what was it darling, three years?"  
  
Mal blinked rapidly, processing the dual responses, but it was Dom who replied first, frowning as he swivelled slightly on his stool to peer at Arthur,  
  
"You've been living alone since you were still a minor?"  
  
Eames answered before Arthur could and there was a definite smug undertone to his words.  
  
"I know! I was horrified myself when I found out. The idea of a 15 year old being essentially turfed out so that his mum could enjoy her new hubby in peace was almost enough to make me go batter the door down-"  
  
Horrified beyond coherent speech, Arthur spluttered. "It wasn’t like that!"  
  
Dom squinted so hard at Arthur that he worried the man might be about to have some sort of stroke, but Eames blithely continued,  
  
"Of course it turned out to not be anything like that really. As I understand it Arthur has been self-sufficient since he was a toddler," Arthur rolled his eyes and returned to his dinner, "and the flat is attached to the house, so the parents were right next door if he needed them. They had room to be them and he had room to be him and of course, he taught himself to cook." Here he toasted Arthur with a grin that he might happily choke him for later. “So, yeah by 15 he was pretty much en route to most guys at Uni dorm levels and then some. Pretty bloody impressive, wouldn't you say?"  
  
His grin was edging toward 'shit eating' and Arthur hadn't decided whether or not to kick Eames under the breakfast bar or smile back when Mal asked quietly,  
  
"Only until you leave for France?"  
  
Arthur met her eyes squarely and said simply, "Yes, we're leaving in just a couple of weeks."  
  
Her eyes flickered between them for a moment before landing on Eames again.  
  
"But you only just got here."  
  
Eames' smile dimmed all the way down to bittersweet.  
  
"It's been a year, sweets. I have nothing lined up, no concrete plans, and an offer I wanted to take so badly I thought I'd imagined him saying it for a second."  
  
"And even then he said no," Arthur added and Dom made a soft querying noise into his wine glass. "I persuaded him." Arthur let himself smile and Eames lifted his glass to him, eyes soft.  
  
"He persuaded me," he concurred gently.  
  
"So," Dom's voice cut in, muddled somewhat as he wiped his mouth with a napkin, having finished his own plateful whilst everyone else was talking or thinking, "Eames is apparently going to France because that's where you're going. Why are you going to France?"  
  
Arthur took a mouthful of food and chewed for a quick moment, buying time whilst trying to not be rude. He swallowed and spoke slowly, desperate to make this point to Eames as well as to the Cobbs.  
  
"My parents met in France. They were both there to find themselves and they always wanted that for me too, so when my dad died, a large part of the trust for me was put aside so that when the time came I could go away, like he had, and find myself… But," he hesitated, the weight of Eames' stare on him at his last word almost enough to make him falter.  
  
"...I'm in no rush to find myself. I have the sort of grades where I can get into anything I want, really, but right now I want to live in France. I want to see the sights and take a bit of time to just be me without expectation of it being anything more than just for the joy of it. It just so happens that I really want to be with Eames while I do that and I'm just lucky enough that I was able to convince him to come with me."  
  
He shrugged and took a sip from his glass.  
  
"And, you will live... together?" Mal asked, almost tonelessly and Arthur knew he had failed.  
  
"Yes," Eames said, leaning forward as though he could shift her eyes from Arthur by forming a shield before him.  
  
She sighed.  
  
"Young love, forbidden love at that, ending in a flight to Paris to live and love together. It is almost like a beautiful dream,  _non_?" She raised her glass in a mocking toast before taking a large swallow. "I hope you do not find it is simply that and nothing more."  
  
She turned to Eames before the protesting growl had fully left him.  
  
"No, no, be at peace Frederic." Eames winced at his full first name. "I will leave you to make your own mistakes - if mistakes they be, at that. Arthur is just as charming, more so in fact, than I recalled, so I wish you the best, dear cousin, on your birthday, and hope that your happiness is lasting."  
  
She smiled with that same tremulous air from before, toasting Eames, and Arthur felt like throwing his own wine at her at the obvious inference that their happiness would be brief but, before he could think up a response, barbed or not, she had moved on into a frothy and delicious story about their precious baby left at home and the moment had passed, and with it, the chance to rid the tightness from around Eames' smile.  
  
Later. Arthur promised himself. Later.  
  
  
++  
  
  
"He will use you up, my sweet. He won't mean to, but he will break you. What you have is a fantasy. You are the first love of a passionate child-turned-man and, once he has 'found himself' as he so charmingly put it, he will break free of this forbidden love story you two have spun yourselves and leave you behind. Don't go to Paris. Enjoy what you have, for all I hate how you came to find each other you must take what you have now. And then when he leaves, he must leave alone, and you can stay and mend and be happy again with us..."  
  
"Mal. That's enough."  
  
Dom's voice, hushed and reassuringly furious, is somehow quieter than Mal's (sorry, Mrs. Cobb, she'd still not given him leave to use her first name and he was determined not to push) drunken, insidious whisperings, and Arthur could picture them all in the doorway, Arthur having gone to search through to the kitchen for the purse she'd been so sure she'd dropped only to hear Mal trying to plant seeds of doubt and heartache in his absence.  
  
"Eames, I'm sorry, she's not really had a drink since the baby was born, she doesn't know what she's saying-"  
  
"No." Eames' voice was granite, cold and implacable. "She knows exactly what she's saying, as do I, and whilst your concerns are noted, dear cuz, what we have is precisely that, what we have and we will continue on as long as it's what we both want, mkay?"  
  
Arthur froze, fingers stilling where they'd lifted to push the doors back open, eyes prickling for a moment and he swallowed a tight little ball of happiness mixed with a surge of sudden grief for Eames' position, before he forced himself forward, smiling with upraised hands, the very picture of amiable bewilderment as he denied himself the urge to glare daggers at the stony-faced French woman.  
  
"Sorry, Mrs. Cobb, it's not out there. Are you sure you brought it in from the car?"  
  
"I'm  _certain_  it's in the car," Dom said with a bleak little sigh and Arthur pitied him the ride home despite the little prick of bittersweet joy he felt in finding a seeming ally.  
  
He moved to Eames' side and smiled warmly at Dom, trying to include Mal at the edges.  
  
"I know this wasn't what any of us had planned for tonight, precisely, but it's been kind of nice. We've not that much time left before we leave. Maybe we could do it again?"  
  
Eames swallowed an odd sort of rattling, choking noise and Dom grinned, a bright, naughty schoolboy sort of expression that Arthur echoed instantly, and Mal rolled her eyes, muttering again in French about the idiocy of men before storming out the open front door.  
  
"Well, thank you both for a pleasant evening," Dom said dryly, moving to follow his wife before pausing on the doorstep. "Eames, I'm sorry for all the… I'm sorry." He shrugged, "And Arthur," the grin returned, "I'm really glad to see you again."  
  
Eames closed the door behind him as he strode away and stood for a moment with his forehead resting against the cool wood.  
  
"Fucking, fucking FUCK that was awkward," he muttered.  
  
"Ohhhhh, yeah." Arthur teased gently, stepping closer to take advantage of Eames' stooped position to press a kiss to the nape of his neck, arms wrapping round his middle as he let his own forehead drop to the skin warmed stretch of t-shirt across broad shoulders. "Not quite the birthday celebration I had in mind."  
  
Eames sighed deeply for a minute before turning his head away from the door, tone warm for all his weariness.  
  
"Oh? And, might one enquire just what you had in mind beyond our delightful dinner sans animosity and angst?"  
  
Stepping back, Arthur coaxed Eames round to face him, hands greedy at his waist, suddenly drunk on the relief of being alone together again coupled with the still so new freedom of being able to do as he damn well like in terms of touch and speech and want...  
  
"Coffee," he said gutturally, nuzzling at Eames' jaw when he would have moved to press their lips together. "Coffee and anything you want, basically."  
  
Eames drew back, something complicated flashing across his face before he restrained himself, his casual nonchalance at odds with the smirk lingering at the edges of his studied indifference.  
  
"That's the second time today you've offered me carte blanche." He ran a hand up over Arthur's hip, round and up his spine to grip loosely at the short hair at the base of Arthur's skull. "A man might think you were after something."  
  
"You know what I'm after..." Arthur purred, gratified by the weight of Eames' gaze on his lips, his own slowly curling smirk echoed there after just a moment.  
  
"It's coffee, isn't it?" Eames said in a tone of great patience and long suffering and Arthur beamed at him.  
  
"Oh please, it's not like you haven't known pretty much from day one that I'd do anything for a good coffee," he let his head fall slack in Eames' grip, "and I really do mean  _anything_."   
  
"Hmm." Eames' expression went indescribable again for a second before he drew Arthur in for a heavy, heady kiss. "Go get in the car."  
  
"Go... get in the car?" Arthur repeated, deadpan, confused.  
  
"It's in the garage. My keys are on the table. Go get in the front seat, pick a radio station, and I will bring you the best fucking coffee you could wish for, Mr. Wright."  
  
_Mr. Wright._  
  
Arthur blushed, his head spinning at the sudden surge backwards to a time teasing Eames with orgasmic noises over caffeine was the closest he thought he'd ever come to the real thing, before dropping his head in seeming deference and Eames smiled, his eyes predatory in the low light of the distant table lamp as he slid a wide palm to the small of Arthur's back before stroking downward, hand greedily groping over the parting of his cheeks as the seat of Arthur's pants kept Eames' fingers from pushing bluntly into him once more.  
  
"Yes sir," he said softly and near reeled when all his blood pooled southwards at Eames' swift shark-like grin of intent. He staggered, hiding it with a stretch as he moved to scoop up the keys, and smothered a grin when he realised he was being laughed at, the stretch having hidden not a damn thing as his trousers moulded swiftly to his growing hardness.  
  
The second Eames turned away Arthur all but ran for the garage door and let himself in with a gurgle of delighted laughter, realising Eames must have moved the car inside during Arthur's shower earlier, and his mind was suddenly cast back to their first night together, Eames having wished to confine him to the bed for all time, but Arthur pouting as he'd confessed his wish to both experience the shower and especially the back seat of Eames' car.  
  
He let himself into the passenger side, setting the radio back to 'Old Man FM' purely for the joy of possibly attempting to veto songs mid-fuck, and tried to not look as vividly desperate to enact the fantasies of old as he could.  
  
_...what you have is a fantasy..._  
  
Something slick and cold knotted itself in Arthur's belly for a second and, despite several years of growing fondness and Eames' clear regard for his cousin, Arthur couldn't help but loathe Mal for a second, the shade of her abruptly saturating the haze and heat of their time together.  
  
He took a moment to focus on casting her aside, her assumptions and frankly stubbornly poisonous attitude somehow more insidious than his mother's brief wrathful gaze, and midway through trying to take comfort in that fact his mind braked, jarring and tripping itself where sense had tried to make a foothold and instead he smiled, his mind's eye filled with the expression on Eames' face, the husky warmth of his voice as he'd agreed ' _This is real_ '.  
  
His eyes jerked open as Eames slid into the car, not having noticed he'd shut his eyes to better luxuriate in the memory, and he wet his lips as the scent of good (if, he wagered, decaffeinated) coffee filled the car, almost as desperately desired as the man bearing it.  
  
"Well, here you go, Wright," Eames murmured with seeming regret and his eyes glittered in the dim light of the garage. The single bulb that hung atop the car roof did little to light the car's interior. "I promised you coffee in exchange for your doing as I asked and I never break my word."  
  
He passed Arthur a travel mug with hands far steadier than his own and Arthur had to swallow a few times to regain his voice, aware that the promise of old had been limited to his not running without Eames' permission, but the myriad fantasies sloshing back and forth in his brain for nearly a year required that he keep the reality of the situation far from the possibility of so many wishes granted all at once.  
  
Eyes lowered, he took a sip from the mug.  
  
"Thank you, sir. It's very good of you."  
  
Eames' lip twitched but he reined his expression in with the speed that came of being of being brilliant in his chosen profession, and shook his head mock sadly.  
  
"I just wish it hadn't had to come to this, Wright. I know you pride yourself on your tenaciousness but you can't keep on like this. Sometimes you just need to respect your elders," he failed to repress a twinkle, "and do as you're told."  
  
Arthur had only been messing with Eames before and they both knew it. He didn't give a shit about the coffee.  
  
He sighed, taking a large sip before screwing the cap back tight on his mug, watching Eames take slow (somewhat smug) swallows from his own, eyes seemingly lost in the distance as though they really were back to slowly making their way through the home-time traffic.  
  
"I'm sorry, Mr. Eames, sir. I mean to be respectful, of course I do. Just sometimes it feels like people don't realise that I know what I'm doing. It's not that I'm trying to be disobedient," Arthur choked down his own fist-pump of triumph as Eames shifted in his seat, the placket of his pants already beginning to distort to allow for his own rapidly expanding girth, "It's just that I tend to know what I want, is all."  
  
Eames took another drawn out, faux-thoughtful drink from his own mug as Arthur practically vibrated in place, blushing vividly, because although he'd adapted to performing as Hamlet in the end, playing a not so innocent schoolboy angling to get fucked (in a way he'd never allowed himself to try) was both hot as hell and embarrassing as fuck.  
  
"Such a wonderful thing, to know one's own mind," Eames said absently, "but whereas I had then previously attributed your misdeeds to teenage exuberance and the supposed invincibility of youth, your statement then implies that your prior actions have been entirely of your own volition?"  
  
Arthur nodded, struggling to keep his eyes from where Eames' fat length was distending the material at his thigh. "They are, were, yes..." he confirmed, mouth dry.  
  
"So your violence against young Master Nash when he disrespected Miss Rittner?"  
Eames' voice was approaching a purr, clearly in better control of the scenario than Arthur so Arthur decided to simply follow his lead, nodding again.  
  
"Yes, sir. My actions, my choice, sir."  
  
"And, when you chose to endanger yourself despite being on school grounds and surrounded by fellow students, merely to better display yourself?"  
  
Arthur bit the inside of his cheek to hold back a laugh and groan all at once, lost in the vivid recollection of Eames standing close, challenging and mocking and devastating and...  
  
"Yes sir, my pride and foolishness, my doing."  
  
Eames smirked into the lip of his travel mug, taking a swift swallow before screwing the lid back shut.  
  
"And when you propositioned a member of staff with the full knowledge that it could cost them their job and endanger their entire career?"  
  
Arthur stiffened and Eames cast him a low look, face impassive even where something akin to worry lurked in his gaze and Arthur was fleetingly horrified, the memory of rejection and the pain that followed welling up almost high enough to choke off the arousal that had been surging in him.  
  
He had wanted Eames whether it was right or wrong, he had wanted him in the car, in his flat, backstage if he had wished it. If it hadn't been for that lost moment in Eames' arms and the resultant anguish, he would have kept on wanting it...  
  
...only now, now he had it and no one was going to tell him it was wrong anymore, no matter what they said and did here in pretence, nothing they were doing was wrong.  
  
He lowered his head, lashes over his eyes as he attempted to sound something close to penitent.  
  
"I wanted it, sir. I know it was wrong but I don't care. I'd do it again."  
  
Eames let out a long sigh that was only in part a performance, relief softening its edge as he affected horror, voice stern as he turned to glare at Arthur.  
  
"You don't care? You don't care what you did was wrong? Oh Mister Wright, I'm so... _disappointed_  in you."  
  
He licked his lips, letting a glimmer of amusement leak through where his gaze held Arthur's and Arthur let him see the temporary quirk of a dimple, before whining, distraught, "Oh, please, Mr. Eames, don't be disappointed. I swear I'll do better, I'll... I'll make it up to you..."  
  
Holding his stare, firm and unblinking, Eames moved a hand to squeeze the ridge of his prick beneath the fabric.  
  
"Will you now?" he queried solicitously, eyes half-lidded as his tone bordered somehow at both bored and meaningful.  
  
"Yes, sir," Arthur breathed, leaning in despite himself, "I'll do anything."  
  
"Good." The word was all but sneered as Eames dropped his sealed mug to the floor, fingers moving swiftly to jerk his pants open, cock practically springing free, livid with blood and urgently twitching as Eames dragged it through the open fly. "Get on with it then."  
  
With a desperation that had nothing to do with their phony recreation of frustrations past, Arthur fell on Eames' dick, his mouth watering as he lipped at the head just long enough to brace himself awkwardly over Eames' lap before letting the fat, wet head slide up and into his mouth.  
  
He moaned thickly, shuddering at the sound as much as the sensation, loving the noise of his voice blocked by the wide dome of Eames' rigid flesh, glutting himself within seconds, forcing himself down, still unable to take the Englishman's thickness as he had so often with his beloved toys in the past, gagging himself a little with frustration.  
  
He drew back, gasping, but where Eames would usually chide him gently for his impatience, this faux Eames curled fingers around his nape and pushed him back down. Not to his limits, a fact that both annoyed and touched him in equal measure, before spearing into his hair, tugging as best he could on the shortened locks, jerking his head up and down.  
  
"Work for it, Wright," he said shakily, "it'll take more than just a half-hearted blow to make up for all your misdeeds."  
  
Arthur whimpered, doubled over Eames from his own seat, no friction on his own cock at all beyond the press of his pants material at his groin and he circled his hips, whining and shocked at himself even as he attempted to work his mouth up and down Eames' length all the harder, shivering with every grunt from above.  
  
Every few pushes downward he choked again, eyes watering hard in a way that hadn't occurred during any of their times together. Eames usually gentled him when he tried too hard to accommodate his generous width, instead drawn back to the memories of teasing himself with toys from the internet, gagging on imaginary strangers where now he was being almost forcibly face-fucked by the man of his dreams.  
  
He moaned, hips jerking and he braced himself on one hand and elbow so that he could reach up to press a hand to his own desperate flesh and Eames snarled, jerking Arthur up off his cock so hard that he really did choke, coughing and spluttering past his tears as Eames drew him to him by his hair.  
  
"What part of making it up to me involves you getting yourself off, hmm Wright? Serve you right if I were to just flip you over and take what I want 'til I can tell if you're really sorry or not."  
  
Arthur bucked again, almost past the point of being able to continue the pretence beyond his pre-cum slick mouth and foggy, fucked out mind.  
  
"Please," he whimpered, butting his mouth against Eames', "Please, sir, I want to be good for you..."  
  
Eames broke character, groaning as he dragged Arthur tight against him to chase the taste of himself from his mouth before kissing the tear trails from his cheeks, taking a moment of gulped, and already sex-heavy air before shoving Arthur back to his seat.  
  
"Get in the back," he snarled softly, "clothes off."  
  
Arthur's hand moved to the door handle but jerked back at Eames' sudden glare and remembering yet another similar fantasy he'd had, he dragged himself through the gap in the seats to sprawl inelegantly against the leather, his knees bent, feet braced upon the seat as he struggled to pull his top up and over his head.  
  
There was a sudden creak and click and Eames apparently exited the car, the door by Arthur's feet wrenching open and he gasped, t-shirt still caught at his elbows as he stared greedily at Eames' swollen dark cock standing proud from his open fly, his muscled taut belly revealed as Eames reached up to remove his own top with ease, eyes heavy on Arthur as he watched him squirm and gasp.  
  
Arthur finally flung the top from him, hand moving to his fly as he kicked his shoes free but before he could do more than jam his fingers under his waistband, Eames interjected, "Not the boxers."  
  
Arthur whimpered, pushing the heavier material past the sticky front of his boxers, kicking them clumsily off with none of the grace he fervently wished for in that second, face burning with enough fake shame to keep his cock jerking fitfully within his underwear.  
  
"Now," Eames ordered, withdrawing a condom and small bottle of lube from his pocket, "turn over. Flat on your belly, arms under your head."  
  
Arthur whined in actual dissatisfaction that time, the idea of not being able to see Eames as well as the idea of crushing his poor neglected hard-on into the leather warring with the sexiness of the scenario, but he obeyed him anyway, crossing his arms under his head and making hopefully pitiful noises where he drew his knees as wide as the seat would allow, circling his hips to entice Eames closer.  
  
The car was by no means little but neither was it a limo and the air seemed to grow close and hot despite the opened door as Eames leaned in and over him, one knee braced on the seat between Arthur's slightly spread thighs and he heard the tell-tale rip and rustle of the condom going on.  
  
"Tell me again," Eames growled over the slick noise of lube being smooth over his latex encased length, "why it is we're doing this here, in my backseat, where anyone could see."  
  
Arthur ground his groin down, groaning and then swiftly sobbing as Eames jerked his boxers down, none too gently, until the material bunched just under his buttocks, cock finally loose and leaking against the rough/smooth leather seat beneath him.  
  
"I did something wrong, sir, I... I disappointed you and I'd do anything, anything to make it up to you, Mr. Eames, sir.”  
  
A crack of the bottle cap and three blunt, thick fingers were smearing cold lube over Arthur's hole. Eames' other hand rested hard against the underside of one cheek, holding the curve wide open for his questing digits. Two fingers breached him near instantly - his body was learning to not so much welcome but demand the sensation - and Arthur made a low keening noise, shifting so one knee fell mostly over the edge of the seat as he attempted to open his legs further.  
  
"And what," Eames panted as he withdrew his fingers, the lube slick hand bracing on the seat just above Arthur's crossed arms and Arthur's eyes feasted greedily on the wet shine of them before him, "do you think I should do, to make it right between us? What do you want to give me, to make it right?"  
  
Arthur understood, even past the haze of mind-melting lust.  
  
Eames needed him to want it, ridiculous pseudo-re-enactment or not, the part of Eames that would never have let them do this, couldn't so much as pretend unless he thought Arthur was just as desperate for it as Eames was himself.  
  
Arthur writhed, deliberately lifting his hips to brush his ass-cheeks against the blunt tip waiting just behind him and he made himself shove down on the still lurking sense of embarrassment so he could ask for what they both wanted.  
  
"Please sir, take me hard. Fuck me until I'm your favourite again, please. I want it so much."  
  
"Darling," Eames choked and Arthur felt himself blanketed, the muscular bulk of the stockier man lowered over him as one hand held his cheeks open and he wailed with both abandon and delight as Eames pushed somehow down and in and  _UP_ , nailing him hard from behind and above, slamming down into him with powerful surges of his legs and hips, something almost like a push up as he slammed down and into him each time and Arthur turned his head into his forearm as he had so many months ago and, wailing, he bit into his arm, almost delirious with from the delicious, primal pounding.  
  
The car smelled like lube and leather and sex and Arthur could feel his cock head smearing thick precome into the leather with every heavy press of Eames inside him and all he could hear over his own stifled moaning was Eames panting, harsh and laboured atop him, and the crude, fleshy slapping sounds and squelching as his body fought to take the wet length shoved only just past his cheeks over and over. It was almost too much too take and he heard himself making the high, shameful sort of grunts he couldn't quite hold back when he was getting close and Eames growled, dropping his head to bite Arthur's shoulder.  
  
"I thought we talked about your not getting off 'til I say so, Wright? You'd better not be grinding that pretty cock into my leather seats, messing them all up..."  
  
Arthur was absolutely certain he was messing the seats up past repair at this point but he pushed his ass up hard and whined, not able to speak in character but just as desperate to come as Eames had stated.  
  
Eames laughed, an oddly mean sound followed by his heaving himself up and off Arthur's back, his dick popping free with a slick sound almost entirely drowned out by Arthur's own cry of protest.  
  
"C'mon," he smacked Arthur's wet cheeks, hard, and clambered out of the car to stand smirking in at Arthur's frowning, flaming face, "Out. I want you right here against the car where everyone can see you fucking take it from me."  
  
Arthur writhed again, partly at the words and partly to watch Eames' expression go slack as he watched his hips gyrate, lube leaking back down his thighs in a way all too reminiscent of Eames' earlier bareback fantasies, opening his thighs wider now to let Eames see what he'd just foolishly abandoned.  
  
"Arthur," he growled, face and tone both promising delicious retribution as he locked his savage gaze to Arthur's taunting one, "bring that perfect arse out here right now before I decide you really do need punishing."  
  
Beaming, Arthur rose to his knees somehow and shuffled backwards until he stumbled out of the car on weakened Bambi legs, his cock maroon and sopping with its own pre-ejaculate as it bobbed before him and Eames jerked him to him on a snarl, eyes on the faint red mark on his arm before seizing his mouth in a ferocious kiss.  
  
He broke away, laughing shortly when Arthur tried to both hold the kiss and turn around to press his ass back against Eames' prick.  
  
"Boxers off, now,” he ground out and Arthur shimmied out of them giddily, surprised he didn't fall down.  
  
"All done, sir,” he whispered, dimples peeping as he swayed, punch-drunk on need and Eames ran greedy hands from his shoulders to his backside and then back to his hips as he turned him to face the car, door clicking shut before him.  
  
"Brace yourself here, Wright." He tried for smooth but his hands were lube-slick still and shaking as they lifted Arthur's hands to position his forearms against the all too familiar blue exterior. He pulled Arthur's hips toward him, murmuring "Ready?" and Arthur all but purred as he planted his feet and pushed back.  
  
"Yes, sir." He breathed out on a moan and almost laughed in delight as Eames sank back into him, giving him barely a second before he began thrusting in earnest again, steering Arthur's body back onto him by way of his hands at his hips, fucking Arthur onto him as he grunted and swore into his nape.  
  
The new position had Arthur's cock actively slapping back against him and for all the sting and pain of the impact, it was just the sort of rough, ready pleasure that he needed on top of Eames' punishing thrusts and he heard himself humming and whimpering again as the tide rose higher in him.  
  
"You fucking love this, don't you, Wright, you slut. Bet every,  _ah fuck,_  every good grade you've ever had is because of this sweet, sodding arse. Bet you've given it away to any teacher you had long enough for you to climb aboard and ride him to a 4.0 average..."  
  
Arthur's dick jerked harder in time with Eames' muttered filth, the words mostly lost to his gasps at the base of his neck but something pushed back past the waves of mounting ecstasy, something that needed known despite the earlier words of malice, despite the fantasy, despite the thought that Eames should already know this...  
  
"No, sir.”  Arthur gasped, twisting back to push his head against Eames shoulder, face turned to push the words and feelings directly into the curve of Eames' clenched jaw, "I only love it cos it's you... and  _uhh_  no one else, sir..."  
  
Eames let out a strangled noise, slumping slightly and Arthur heaved an arm up off the car to loop it back and around Eames' shoulder, almost head-locking him in place for a kiss as his hips still slammed and shoved Eames' cock inside him.  
  
"I fucking love it," Arthur muttered harshly, mouth crushed against Eames' as they gasped and sucked and kissed at each other, "because it's  _you_."  
  
With a short, hurt sound Eames slammed them both against the side of the car and Arthur huffed a winded groan as Eames ground his hips in hard and deep, the motion stuttering as he twitched and came. Arthur whimpered as he pushed back into it, wishing he could feel it fully inside him before coming himself at the merest clumsy tug of one of Eames' hands at his long neglected dick.  
  
Normally Arthur liked to keep Eames in him as long as possible, making Eames chuckle with his little whines and frowns when he pulled away, but after no more than a few seconds Arthur was batting at him, hands fluttering back against Eames' as his thighs threatened full strike with Eames' full weight against him.  
  
With a long, protesting groan Eames drew back from him, an excess of lube coming with him and he made a satisfied sort of grunt as he ran a shaking hand down Arthur's thigh as he himself sank to the floor.  
  
"Not bad... for an old guy, huh?" he quipped breathlessly and Arthur grinned weakly, face mashed against the car once more in an effort to keep from dropping.  
  
"Shu' up," he slurred, "M'dead now."  
  
Eames barked a laugh and Arthur peeked at him over his shoulder, eyes lingering over the absolute wreck of him, covetous of his prize despite the blush rising in both their cheeks beyond the standard sated flush.  
  
"Well," he said attempting normalcy as he slowly turned to slump backwards, still leaning against the car as he faced Eames, "it's still your birthday for, like, another twenty minutes I think. What do you want to do?"  
  
Eames groaned and slumped fully to the floor.  
  
"Shower. Bed. Sleep... Possibly a glass of water. These are my demands..."  
  
He smiled at Arthur wearily but there was something tense and raw looking somewhere at the back of it and Arthur sighed inwardly.  
  
"And they shall be met, oh birthday lord," he teased gently, further bothered by the increase in tension at his words, "But if you think I'm carrying your ass upstairs you've got another thing coming."  
  
Some of the stiffness melted away and Eames gave him the full puppy dog treatment.  
  
"But, darling. It's my birthday!" He pouted so beautifully that, for a scant second, Arthur almost considered carrying him and he smothered his own laugh, scowling mock ferociously at him.  
  
"Only for another, possible, 18 minutes and the first one to the shower gets the left side of the bed so, y'know... No."  
  
He made to stride away, all bravado as his legs were still trembling beneath him and Eames called out, just as Arthur almost made the doorway,  
  
"Darling, Arthur, dearest, I know what I want for my birthday!"  
  
Arthur affected a slump against the doorway, grateful for the support as his slick thighs slid against each other like wet soap bars.  
  
"Is it the left side of the bed, by any chance?" he queried, deadpan and, with a tired grumble of effort, Eames pushed himself to his feet and staggered over to stand by Arthur, beaming widely.  
  
"It is, dear heart. You're so clever... and thoughtful and very, very wise..."  
  
"Yes alright," Arthur scoffed, jabbing Eames with an elbow. "I'm wonderful, you're getting the left side but I am still having the first shower, dammit."  
  
Eames drew Arthur to his side, kissing his shoulder messily.  
  
"Of course you are darling, of course you are."  
  
They ended up sharing (of course.)  
  
They spent far too long under the spray in truth, Eames' hands always possessive as they soaped and wiped and set Arthur back to rights and Arthur had always found Eames to be somehow even more mesmerising wet but, after a swift battle about who was going to clean the car in the morning (it was looking like a joint effort although neither were willing to admit it) Arthur padded out first, drying himself and considering taking the left side after all before grudgingly sliding in, dry, clean and naked, on the right side of the bed.  
  
He'd left Eames showering and burrowed down into the bedding before drifting off into a well-earned sleep, awaiting his still yet to come snuggle when he abruptly blinked himself back awake.  
  
He'd only dropped off briefly, maybe ten minutes or so going by the clock on the bedside but Eames still hadn't come through.  
  
Arthur rose from the bed, crossing the room to the still open door of the en suite, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, somehow expecting him to be asleep even as an internal voice screamed that he must have slipped and knocked himself out, so when he rounded the doorway to find him still standing under the spray, just as he'd left him, he was momentarily nonplussed.  
  
Then he saw it. The hard, raised line of Eames' shoulders, hunched up and tense, his head dropped forward to face downward under the spray and Arthur remembered the tension after they'd finished downstairs, the choked off sob when he'd told him he only wanted to be with him, not...  
  
He moved to stand at the edge of the glass panel, knowing Eames would hear him if he spoke clearly past the falling water.  
  
"Those things she said," Arthur said, voice clear and true, a weight lifting off him as he embraced the need to express the feelings from hours before, "about us - about me – they're not true."  
  
Eames stiffened and Arthur continued, not ready to be interrupted.  
  
"The thing is, I can see where she's coming from. The student/teacher thing? Yeah it's hot, a million porno clichés can't be wrong, but that's not why I liked you or why you liked me and I know that. And I know you know that, but she doesn't and that's tough because she obviously cares about you and what she thinks and says matters to you."  
  
He sighed, disappointed in a way he hadn't realised he felt so keenly until that moment.  
  
"The thing is, it doesn't matter if she's ok with it or if Dom's ok with it or my mom, or Rick, or Ari or Rob because the very first night we got together I still had to convince you a little bit that this is what I want, you are what I want. But I feel like now maybe I didn't convince you. She told you that you were just my fantasy and you did your best to ignore that, I know you did, because that was hot as hell and frankly something I think we've both wanted since I first bummed a smoke in your car, but something she said got to you, I know it did, because she said fantasy and for a moment there, for just a moment I hope, I think you believed her and..."  
  
He broke off, jaw dropping in horror as Eames turned to face him, eyes red, face pinched tight with misery and Arthur was back under the spray and launching himself at Eames before he could even speak.  
  
"It's ok, it's ok..." Arthur babbled helplessly and locked himself around Eames under the sprinkle of now tepid water, Eames' own arms raising to lock tight around Arthur's ribs as he made a cut off choked noise and pressed his face into Arthur's throat, shoulders hitching once, then twice.  
  
_"It's ok, it's ok, it's ok..."_  
  
They stood there for a few minutes until Eames started taking deep slow breaths to a cadence Arthur remembered only too well, breathing steadily with him until he lifted his head slightly from Arthur's neck.  
  
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..." he rasped and Arthur shook his head violently, nearly head butting Eames in his abject refusal.  
  
"No, no fuck no, god I just thought... no, please, please don't be sorry..."  
  
Eames shuddered and drew back a bit, swaying and Arthur released him with one hand to turn off the shower head, attempting to steer him back to the bed.  
  
He sank onto its edge with the beginnings of shivers and Arthur snatched up his own towel from atop the laundry basket, briskly rubbing at his torso arms and legs before moving up to cup and cradle his face as he wiped at it with gentle, shaking hands.  
  
"I'm the one who should be sorry," he whispered, "I know what she and Dom mean to you and you had this really shitty run of seeing everyone all at once and..."  
  
Eames reached up to catch his hands, bringing them down before him to press fervent kisses to them.  
  
"No, you're right. I, I let her get to me for just a minute there. I thought she was just being her normal melodramatic self earlier but then I just suddenly thought about how we'd crossed my bed and the car off of your list and I just, I just..."  
  
Arthur dropped the towel and knelt up, kissing Eames firmly despite the quaking in his belly.  
  
"I get it, I do," he whispered, having pulled back to rest their foreheads together. “That's what's so frustrating. I really do get it but I don't know what to do because if what they think about me outweighs what you think I'm telling you…"  
  
"No, God, no I didn't mean it like that!" Eames jerked back, something like anger in his voice, and Arthur welcomed it past the broken man he'd not seen since Eames had once thought he'd not even have a picture to remember him by.  
  
"Then tell me." Arthur pulled him back close, wanting the contact, needing it to counteract the terror building inside him that he could somehow still lose him having only just got him. "Tell me and we can fix it together."  
  
Eames sighed, slumping into Arthur, and lifted his arms to crush him close once more.  
  
"Do you know how pathetic it feels to turns 26 and still have your 18 year old boyfriend be possibly the more mature one in the relationship?" He groused, looking for an outlet in humour and Arthur wanted to let him run with but he couldn't, he just couldn't.  
  
"I am just as pathetic," he whispered, "I'm just hiding it better right now."  
  
Eames drew back again, this time to hold Arthur's eyes, all self-deprecation and teasing gone as genuine concern replaced it.  
  
"Darling?" he murmured.  
  
Arthur wet his lips.  
  
"I'm not just trying to make you feel better, or make a point here," he stated quietly, "I really need to know. Is it going to matter to you more that they'll say I'm just going to drop you and that you're just a fantasy to me, or will you listen and remember when I tell you again that I have always known what I want, and that I what I want is to be with  _you._  Real deal, full commitment style, despite my age, because after nearly a year of really fucking trying to  _not have feelings_  for you I had thought we'd both concluded that what we have here-"  
  
"-is real," Eames finished, voice clear where his eyes were misty and Arthur nodded jerkily, blinking rapidly himself.  
  
"Yeah." He agreed. "And, I'm good to - HAPPY to - remind you of that any time someone tries to bring us down because yeah, you were my teacher and Mrs. Cobb and my mom may not want to let that go any time soon but I can't," He shut his eyes on a surge of weakness and willed his lip not to quiver, "I can _not_  do the convincing thing over and over. I just, I can't. You either believe me or you don't. On anything else I've got your back, let them bitch and whine about our ages or how we met, I don't care, but if  _you_  don't believe me..."  
  
Eames ghosted a thumb pad over Arthur's eyes to encourage them to flutter open and he met their watery gaze steadily.  
  
"I freaked out,” he said gently. "She got to me, she did, but I know, I know in my  _bones,_ that you are for me and I've known forever that you've got my back." He smiled and tried to smooth the frown lines away. "At least since February anyway... best point man cum getaway driver in the business," he rasped gutturally and Arthur laughed despite himself.  
  
"Whatever you say, boss." He wound his arms about Eames' neck and straddled him until he was seated in his lap, Eames' ink stained arms crushing him close in turn.  
  
They stayed wound up in each other for several long minutes, exchanging sleepy kisses and long breaths until the stress level had reduced from 'shaky' all the way down to 'weary' and so they reluctantly separated for the few seconds it took to get under the sheets, twining themselves back together the second the cover settled over them.  
  
"M'sorry your birthday turned out to be so stressful," Arthur mumbled, halfway to sleep as he pressed the words and a lingering kiss to Eames' always wonderful lips.  
  
A soft huff stirred him as he almost sank beneath the shattered sense of completion their conversation had brought coupled with the warm weight of Eames' limbs about him.  
  
"Well darling, my birthday started and ended with you in my arms. M'not sure it gets better than that."  
  
Arthur opened weighted lids to look into Eames' own drowsy stare and, after a moment where he decided he was too tired and embarrassed to cry again, he smiled fondly at him.  
  
"Sap." He rasped and Eames grinned delightedly, kissing him swiftly even as his ears pinkened.  
  
"I know, so uncool, I'm such a burden," he crooned placatingly and Arthur sniggered, each of them giggling nonsensically for a few tired seconds before settling back in, too tired for further jibes.  
  
"But, y'know," Arthur slurred, maybe five minutes later, pulling both back to the brink once more, "the same, only with you,” he mumbled and was lost again to blissful unconsciousness even as Eames smiled into his hair.  
  
"Love you too, darling," he mumbled but neither of them were awake enough to hear it.  
  
  
**END WEEK TWO.**


End file.
